LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


c_y 


Oooooooooooooooooooo 


SIDNEY    LANIER 


BY 


EDWIN  MIMS 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON  AND  NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
press,  Cambtib0e 
1905 


fttt 


COPYRIGHT   1905   BY  EDWIN  MIMS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Published  November, 


SECOND    IMPRESSION 


PREFACE 

THE  present  volume  is  a  biography  of  Lanier 
rather  than  a  critical  study  of  his  work.  So  far 
as  possible,  I  have  told  the  story  in  his  own 
words,  or  in  the  words  of  those  who  knew  him 
most  intimately.  If  I  have  erred  in  placing  un 
due  emphasis  on  the  early  part  of  his  career,  it 
was  intentional,  for  that  is  the  part  of  his  life 
about  which  least  is  known.  I  have  intention 
ally  emphasized  his  relation  to  the  South,  in  order 
to  avoid  a  misconception  that  he  was  a  detached 
figure.  The  bibliographies  prepared  by  Mr.  Wills 
for  the  "  Southern  History  Association  "  and  by 
Mr.  Callaway  for  his  "  Select  Poems  of  Lanier  " 
make  one  unnecessary  for  this  volume. 

Of  previously  published  material,  I  have  been 
greatly  indebted  to  the  Memorial  by  Mr.  William 
Hayes  Ward,  the  fuller  sketch  by  the  late  Pro 
fessor  W.  M.  Baskervill,  and  the  volume  of  let 
ters  published  by  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons.  For  new  material,  I  am  indebted,  first 
of  all,  to  Mrs.  Sidney  Lanier,  who  has  put  me 


:to 


vi  PREFACE 

in  possession,  not  of  the  most  intimate  corre 
spondence  of  the  poet,  but  of  many  letters  writ 
ten  by  him  to  his  father  and  friends,  as  well  as 
unpublished  fragments  and  essays..  She  has  done 
all  in  her  power  to  make  this  volume  accurate 
and  trustworthy.  Her  sons,  Mr.  Charles  Day 
Lanier  and  Mr.  Henry  W.  Lanier,  have  put 
me  under  special  obligations,  the  latter  especially, 
by  reading  the  proof  of  a  large  part  of  the  vol 
ume.  Mr.  Clifford  Lanier,  the  poet's  brother, 
put  at  my  disposal  a  valuable  series  of  letters, 
and  otherwise  aided  me.  I  am  indebted  to  Dr. 
Daniel  Coit  Oilman,  Mrs.  Edwin  C.  Cushman, 
Judge  Logan  E.  Bleckley,  Mr.  Dudley  Buck, 
Mr.  Charles  Scribner,  Mrs.  Isabel  L.  Dobbin, 
Mr.  George  Cary  Eggleston,  Miss  Effie  Johnston, 
Mr.  Sidney  Lanier  Gibson,  and  Miss  Sophie 
Kirk,  for  placing  in  my  hands  unpublished 
letters  of  Lanier.  The  following  have  written 
reminiscences  which  have  proved  especially  help 
ful:  Dr.  James  Woodrow,  Professor  Gilder- 
sleeve,  Chancellor  Walter  B.  Hill,  Professor 
Waldo  S.  Pratt,  Mrs.  Arthur  W.  Machen,  Mrs. 
Sophie  Bledsoe  Herrick,  Mr.  F.  H.  Gottlieb,  and 
Mr.  Charles  Heber  Clarke.  I  desire  to  thank 
Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons  .and  Mrs.  Lanier 


PREFACE  vii 

for  permission  to  quote  from  the  letters  and 
collected  writings  of  Lanier;  Messrs.  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Co.  for  permission  to  quote  from 
Lanier's  "  Shakspere  and  his  Forerunners,"  and 
the  editor  of  "  Lippincott's  Magazine,"  for  the 
quotations  from  the  letters  to  Mr.  Milton  H. 
Northrup.  For  various  reasons  I  am  under  obli 
gations  to  Miss  Susan  Hayes  Ward,  Mrs.  W.  M. 
Baskervill,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lawrence  Turnbull, 
Mr.  George  S.  Wills,  Mr.  J.  P.  Breedlove  of 
the  Trinity  College  Library,  Mr.  T.  J.  Kiernan 
of  the  Harvard  CoUege  Library,  Mr.  Philip 
K.  Uhler  of  the  Peabody  Institute,  Mr.  J.  H. 
Southgate,  Mr.  F.  A.  Ogburn,  Mr.  Milton  H. 
Northrup,  Mr.  J.  A  Bivins,  Dr.  C.  Alphonso 
Smith,  and  to  my  colleagues,  Dr.  W.  P.  Few  and 
Dr.  W.  H.  Glasson. 
TRINITY  COLLEGE,  DURHAM,  N.  C., 
August  12,  1905. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 1 

I.     ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD      ...  9 

II.     COLLEGE  DAYS  ......  26 

III.  A  CONFEDERATE  SOLDIER      .        .        .  42 

IV.  SEEKING  A  VOCATION        ....      63 
V.     LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER        .        ...  99 

VI.     A  MUSICIAN  IN  BALTIMORE      .        .        .     129 
VII.     THE  BEGINNING  OF  A  LITERARY  CAREER     152 
VIII.     STUDENT    AND    TEACHER    OF    ENGLISH 

LITERATURE 198 

IX.     LECTURER  AT  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY    231 
X.     THE  NEW  SOUTH       .        .        .        .        .264 

XL     CHARACTERISTICS  AND  IDEAS        .        .        300 
XII.     THE  LAST  YEAR        .        .        .        .        .320 

XIII.    THE  ACHIEVEMENT  IN  CRITICISM  AND  IN 

POETRY        .        .        .        .        .        .        340 

INDEX  377 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


SIDNEY  LANIEB  IN  1870.    (Photogravure.)     Frontispiece^ 
SIDNEY  LANIEB  AT  THE  AGE  OF  FIFTEEN,  IN  1857 .    .    26 
SIDNEY  LANIEB  IN  1866,  FROM  A  ;' CARTE   DE  VISITE" 

PHOTOGRAPH     IN     POSSESSION     OF     MB.     MlLTON      H. 

NOBTHBUP,  OF  SYBACUSE,  N.  Y 54 

MARY  DAY  LANIEB  IN  1873 98 

FACSIMILE  OF  ONE  OF  LANIER'S  EARLIEST  EXISTING 

MUSICAL  SCORES,  WRITTEN  AT  THE  AGE  OF  19  .  .  .  134 
FACSIMILE  OF  LETTER  TO  CHARLOTTE  CUSHMAN.  .  .  190 
BRONZE  BUST  OF  SIDNEY  LANIER  BY  EPHBAIM  KEYSEB  262 


SIDNEY   LANIER 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  author  of  the  introduction  to  the  first  com 
plete  edition  of  Sidney  Lanier's  poems  —  pub 
lished  three  years  after  the  poet's  death  —  pre 
dicted  with  confidence  that  Lanier  would  "  take 
his  final  rank  with  the  first  princes  of  American 
song."  Anticipating  the  appearance  of  this  vol 
ume,  one  of  the  best  of  recent  lyric  poets,  who 
had  been  Lanier's  fellow  prisoner  during  the 
Civil  War,  prophesied  that  "  his  name  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  would  go."  Indeed,  there  was  a 
sense  of  surprise  to  those  who  had  read  only  the 
1877  edition  of  Lanier's  poems,  when  his  poems 
were  collected  in  an  adequate  and  worthy  edition. 
Since  that  time  the  space  devoted  to  him  in  his 
tories  of  American  literature  has  increased  from 
ten  or  twelve  lines  to  as  many  pages  —  an  indi 
cation  at  once  of  popular  interest  and  of  an  in 
creasing  number  of  scholars  and  critics  who  have 
recognized  the  value  of  his  work.  His  growing 
fame  found  a  notable  expression  when  his  picture 


2  SIDNEY  LANIER 

appeared  in  the  frontispiece  of  the  standard 
American  Anthology,  along  with  those  of  Poe, 
Walt  Whitman,  and  the  five  recognized  New 
England  poets. 

It  cannot  be  said,  however,  that  Lanier's  rank 
as  a  poet  —  even  in  American,  to  say  nothing  of 
English  literature  —  is  yet  fixed.  He  is  a  very 
uneven  writer,  and  his  defects  are  glaring.  Some 
of  the  best  American  critics  —  men  who  have  a 
right  to  speak  with  authority  —  shake  their  heads 
in  disapproval  at  what  they  call  the  Lanier  cult. 
Abroad  he  has  had  no  vogue,  as  have  Emerson 
and  Poe  and  Walt  Whitman.  The  enthusiastic 
praise  of  the  "  Spectator"  has  been  more  than  bal 
anced  by  the  indifference  of  some  English  critics 
and  the  sarcasm  of  others.  Mme.  Blanc's  article 
in  the  "  Kevue  des  Deux  Mondes,"  setting  forth 
the  charm  of  his  personality  and  the  excellence 
of  his  poetry,  met  with  little  response  in  France. 
In  view  of  this  divergence  of  opinion  among 
critics,  it  may  be  doubted  if  the  time  has  yet  come 
for  anything  approaching  a  final  valuation  of 
Lanier's  work.  In  the  later  pages  of  this  book 
an  attempt  will  be  made  to  give  a  reasonably 
balanced  and  critical  study  of  his  actual  achieve 
ment  in  poetry  and  criticism. 

Certainly  those  who  have  at  heart  the  interest 
of  American  poetry  cannot  but  wage  a  feud  with 
death  for  taking  away  one  who  had  just  begun 


INTRODUCTION  3 

his  career.  The  words  of  the  great  English 
threnodies  over  the  premature  death  of  men  of 
genius  come  involuntarily  to  one  who  realizes 
what  the  death  of  Lanier  meant.  It  is  true  that 
he  lived  fourteen  years  longer  than  Keats  and 
ten  years  longer  than  Shelley,  and  that  he  was 
as  old  as  Poe  when  he  died  ;  but  it  must  be  re 
membered  that,  so  far  as  his  artistic  work  was 
concerned,  the  period  from  1861  to  1873  was 
largely  one  of  arrested  development.  He  is  one 
of  the  inheritors  of  unfulfilled  renown,  not  sim 
ply  because  he  died  young,  but  because  what 
he  had  done  and  what  he  had  planned  to  do 
gave  promise  of  a  much  better  and  more  endur 
ing  work.  Such  men  as  he  and  Keats  must  be 
judged,  to  be  sure,  by  their  actual  achievement ; 
but  there  will  always  attach  to  their  names  the 
glory  of  the  unfulfilled  life,  a  fame  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  work  accomplished.  Poe  had 
completed  his  work:  limited  in  its  range,  it  is 
all  but  perfect.  Lanier,  with  his  reverence  for 
science,  his  appreciation  of  scholarship,  his  fine 
feeling  for  music,  and  withal  his  love  of  nature 
and  of  man,  had  laid  broad  the  foundation  for  a 
great  poet's  career.  The  man  who,  at  so  early ^ 
an  age  and  in  the  face  of  such  great  obstacles, 
wrote  the  "  Marshes  of  Glynn"  and  the  "  Science 
of  English  Verse,"  and  who  in  addition  thereto 
gave  evidence  of  constant  growth  and  of  self- 


4  SIDNEY   LANIER 

criticism,  would  undoubtedly  have  achieved  much 
worthier  things  in  the  future. 

Of  one  thing  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  his 
personality  is  one  of  the  rarest  and  finest  we  have 
yet  had  in  America,  and  that  his  life  was  one  of 
the  most  heroic  recorded  in  the  annals  of  men. 
The  time  has  passed  for  emphasizing  unduly  the 
pathos  of  Lanier's  life.  He  was  not  a  sorrowful 
man,  nor  was  his  life  a  sad  one.  His  untimely 
and  all  but  tragic  death  following  a  life  of  suffer 
ing  and  poverty,  the  appeals  made  by  admirers 
in  behalf  of  the  poet's  family,  a  few  letters  writ 
ten  to  friends  explaining  his  seeming  negligence, 
and  a  fragment  or  two  found  in  his  papers  after 
death,  have  been  sometimes  treated  without  their 
proper  perspective.  A  complete  reading  of  his 
letters  —  published  and  unpublished  —  and  of  his 
writings,  combined  with  the  reminiscences  of  his 
friends  in  Baltimore,  Macon,  and  elsewhere,  will 
convince  any  one  of  the  essential  vigor  and  buoy 
ancy  of  his  nature.  He  would  have  resented  the 
expression  "  poor  Lanier,"  with  as  much  empha 
sis  as  did  Lamb  the  condescending  epithet  used 
by  Coleridge.  He  was  ever  a  fighter,  and  he  won 
many  triumphs.  He  had  the  power  of  meeting 
all  oppositions  and  managing  them,  emerging 
into  "  a  large  blue  heaven  of  moral  width  and 
delight." 

He  was  a  sufferer  from  disease,  but  even  in 


INTRODUCTION  5 

the  midst  of  its  grip  upon  him  he  maintained  his 
composure,  cheerfulness,  and  unfailing  good  hu 
mor.  He  had  remarkable  powers  of  recupera 
tion.  Writing  to  his  father  from  San  Antonio 
in  1872,  he  said :  "  I  feel  to-day  as  if  I  had  been 
a  dry  leathery  carcass  of  a  man  into  whom  some 
one  had  pumped  strong  currents  of  fresh  blood, 
of  abounding  life,  and  of  vigorous  strength.  I 
cannot  remember  when  I  have  felt  so  crisp,  so 
springy,  and  so  gloriously  unconscious  of  lungs." 
During  these  intervals  of  good  health  he  was 
mentalty  alert,  —  a  prodigious  worker,  feeling 
"  an  immortal  and  unconquerable  toughness  of 
fibre  "  in  the  strings  of  his  heart.  There  was 
something  more  than  the  cheerfulness  that  attends 
the  disease  to  which  he  was  subject.  There  was 
an  ardor,  an  exuberance  that  comes  only  from 
"  a  lordly,  large  compass  of  soul."  As  to  his  pov 
erty,  it  must  be  said  that  few  poets  were  ever  so 
girt  about  with  sympathetic  relatives  and  friends, 
and  few  men  ever  knew  how  to  meet  poverty  so 
bravely.  He  fretted  at  times  over  the  irrespon- 
siveness  of  the  public  to  his  work,  but  not  so 
much  as  did  his  friends,  to  whom  he  was  con 
stantly  speaking  or  writing  words  of  encourage 
ment  and  hope.  Criticism  taught  him  "  to  lift 
his  heart  absolutely  above  all  expectation  save 
that  which  finds  its  fulfillment  in  the  large  con 
sciousness  of  faithful  devotion  to  the  highest 


6  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ideals  in  art."  "  This  enables  me>"  he  said,  "  to 
work  in  tranquillity."  He  knew  that  he  was 
fighting  the  battle  which  every  artist  of  his  type 
had  had  to  fight  since  time  began.  In  his  in 
tellectual  life  he  passed  through  a  period  of  storm 
and  stress,  when  he  felt "  the  twist  and  cross  of 
life,"  but  he  emerged  into  a  state  where  belief 
overmasters  doubt  and  he  knew  that  he  knew. 
He  was  cheerful  in  the  presence  of  death,  which 
he  held  off  for  eight  years  by  sheer  force  of  will ; 
at  last,  when  he  had  wrested  from  time  enough 
to  show  what  manner  of  man  he  was,  hs  drank 
down  the  stirrup-cup  "  right  smilingly." 

Looked  at  from  every  possible  standpoint,  it 
may  be  seen  that  none  of  these  obstacles  could 
subdue  his  hopeful  and  buoyant  spirit.  "  He 
was  the  most  cheerful  man  I  ever  knew,"  said 
Richard  Malcolm  Johnston.  Ex-President  Gil- 
man  expressed  the  feeling  of  those  who  knew  the 
poet  intimately  when  he  said,  "  I  have  heard  a 
lady  say  that  if  he  took  his  place  in  a  crowded 
horse-car,  an  exhilarating  atmosphere  seemed  to 
be  introduced  by  his  breezy  ways.  .  .  .  He  al 
ways  preserved  his  sweetness  of  disposition,  his 
cheerfulness,  his  courtesy,  his  industry,  his  hope, 
his  ambition.  .  .  .  Like  a  true  knight  errant, 
never  disheartened  by  difficulty,  never  despondent 
in  the  face  of  dangers,  always  brave,  full  of  re 
sources,  confident  of  ultimate  triumph."  The  stu- 


INTRODUCTION  7 

dent  at  Johns  Hopkins  University  who  knew  him 
best  said  :  "  No  strain  of  physical  wear  or  suffer 
ing,  no  pressure  of  worldly  fret,  no  amount  of 
dealing  with  what  are  called  '  the  hard  facts  of  ex 
perience,'  could  stiffen  or  dampen  or  deaden  the 
inborn  exuberance  of  his  nature,  which  escaped 
incessantly  into  a  realm  of  beauty,  of  wonder,  of 
joy,  and  of  hope."  Certainly  the  great  bulk  of 
his  published  lectures  and  his  poems  bear  out 
this  impression.  His  brother,  Mr.  Clifford  La- 
nier,  says  that  he  would  not  publish  somo  of  his 
early  poems  because  they  were  not  hale  and 
hearty,  "  breathing  of  sanity,  hope,  betterment, 
aspiration."  "  Those  are  the  best  poets,"  said 
Lanier  himself,  "  who  keep  down  these  cloudy 
sorrow  songs  and  wait  until  some  light  comes  to 
gild  them  with  comfort."  And  this  he  did. 

Lanier,  whose  career  has  been  here  briefly 
suggested,  makes  his  appeal  to  various  types 
of  men  and  women.  Enjoying  the  use  of  the 
Peabody  Library  and  living  in  the  atmosphere 
of  a  newly  created  university,  he  gave  evidence 
of  the  modern  scholar's  zest  for  original  re 
search  ;  and  in  addition  thereto  displayed  a  spir 
itual  attitude  to  literature  that  is  rare.  The 
professional  musician  sees  in  him  one  of  the  ad- ' 
vance  guard  of  native-born  Americans  who  have 
achieved  success  in  some  one  field  of  musical 
endeavor,  while  a  constantly  increasing  public, 


8  SIDNEY   LANIER 

intent  upon  musical  culture,  finds  in  his  letters 
and  essays  an  expression  of  the  deeper  meaning 
of  music  and  penetrative  interpretations  of  the 
modern  orchestra.  Lanier  influenced  to  some 
extent  the  minor  poets  of  his  era :  who  knows 
but  that  in  some  era  of  creative  art  —  which  let 
us  hope  is  not  far  off  —  his  subtle  investigations 
and  experiments  in  the  domain  where  music  and 
verse  converge  may  prove  the  starting  point  of 
some  greater  poet's  work  ?  To  the  South,  with 
which  he  was  identified  by  birth  and  tempera 
ment,  and  in  whose  tremendous  upheaval  he  bore 
a  heroic  part,  the  cosmopolitanism  and  modern- 
ness  of  his  mind  should  be  a  constant  protest 
against  those  things  that  have  hindered  her  in 
the  past  and  an  incentive  in  that  brilliant  fu 
ture  to  which  she  now  so  steadfastly  and  surely 
moves.  To  all  men  everywhere  who  care  for 
whatsoever  things  are  excellent  and  lovely  and 
of  good  report  his  life  is  a  priceless  heritage. 


CHAPTER  I 

ANCESTRY   AND   BOYHOOD 

SIDNEY  LANIEE  was  born  in  Macon,  Ga.,  Feb 
ruary  3,  1842.  His  parents,  Robert  Sampson 
Lanier  and  Mary  J.  Anderson,  were  at  that 
time  living  in  a  small  cottage  on  High  street, 
the  father  a  struggling  young  lawyer,  and  the 
mother  a  woman  of  much  thrift  and  piety. 
There  were  on  both  sides  traditions  of  gentility 
which  went  back  to  the  older  States  of  Virginia 
and  North  Carolina,  and  in  the  case  of  the  La- 
niers  to  southern  France  and  England.  Lanier 
became  very  much  interested  in  the  study  of  his 
genealogy.  He  was  convinced  by  evidence  gath 
ered  from  the  many  widely  scattered  branches 
of  the  family  that  a  single  family  of  Laniers 
originally  lived  in  France,  and  that  the  fact  of 
the  name  alone  might  with  perfect  security  be 
taken  as  a  proof  of  kinship.  On  account  of  their 
nomadic  habits,  due  to  their  continual  move 
ment  from  place  to  place  during  two  hundred 
years,  he  found  it  difficult  to  make  out  a  com 
plete  family  history.  He  was  not,  nor  have  his 
relatives  and  later  investigators  been,  able  to 


10  SIDNEY   LANIER 

find  material  for  the  study  of  the  Laniers  in 
their  original  home.  At  one  time  he  expressed  a 
wish  that  President  Hayes  would  appoint  him 
consul  to  southern  France.  Certainly  he  was  at 
home  there  in  imagination  and  spirit  from  the 
time  when  as  a  boy  he  felt  the  fascination  of 
Froissart's  "  Chronicles." 

One  of  the  keenest  pleasures  he  had  in  later 
life  was  to  discover  in  the  Peabody  Library  at 
Baltimore  a  full  record  of  the  Lanier  family  in 
England.  In  investigating  the  state  of  art  in 
Elizabeth's  time  he  came  across  in  Walpole's 
"  Anecdotes  of  Painting  "  references  to  Jerome 
and  Nicholas  Lanier,  whose  careers  he  followed 
with  his  accustomed  zeal  and  industry  through 
the  first-hand  sources  which  the  library  afforded. 
There  is  no  more  characteristic  letter  of  La- 
nier's  than  that  written  in  1879  to  Mr.  J.  F.  D. 
Lanier,  giving  the  result  of  this  investigation. 
He  there  tells  the  story  of  ten  Laniers  who  en 
joyed  the  personal  favor  of  four  consecutive 
English  monarchs.  Jerome  Lanier,  he  believed, 
had  on  account  of  religious  persecution  fled 
from  France  to  England  during  the  last  quarter 
of  the  sixteenth  century  and  "  availed  himself 
of  his  accomplishments  in  music  to  secure  a 
place  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  household."  His  son 
Nicholas  Lanier — "musician,  painter,  engraver" 
—  was  patronized  successively  by  James  I, 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  11 

Charles  I,  and  Charles  II,  wrote  music  for  the 
masks  of  Ben  Jonson  and  Campion  and  for  the 
lyrics  of  Herrick,  and  was  the  first  marshal  of  a 
society  of  musicians  organized  by  Charles  I  in 
1626.  He  also  wrote  a  cantata  called  "  Hero 
and  Leander."  He  was  the  friend  of  Van  Dyck, 
who  painted  a  portrait  of  Lanier  which  attracted 
the  attention  of  Charles  I  and  eventually  led  to 
that  painter's  accession  to  the  court.  He  was 
sent  by  King  Charles  to  Italy  to  make  purchases 
for  the  royal  gallery.  He  and  other  members  of 
his  family  lived  at  Greenwich  and  were  known 
as  amateur  artists  as  well  as  musicians.  After 
the  Restoration  five  Laniers  —  Nicholas,  Je 
rome,  Clement,  Andrewe,  and  John  —  were  char 
ter  members  of  an  organization  of  musicians 
established  by  the  king  "  to  exert  their  author 
ity  for  the  improvement  of  the  science  and  the 
interest  of  its  professors."  It  was  a  great  plea 
sure  to  Sidney  Lanier  to  find  in  the  diary  of 
Pepys  many  passages  telling  of  his  associations 
with  these  music-loving  Laniers.  "  Here  the 
best  company  for  musique  I  ever  was  in  my 
life,"  says  the  quaint  old  annalist,  "  and  I  wish 
I  could  live  and  die  in  it.  ...  I  spent  the 
night  in  an  exstasy  almost ;  and  having  invited 
them  to  my  house  a  day  or  two  hence,  we 
broke  up." 

The  study  of  these  distant  relatives  enjoying 


12  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  favor  of  successive  English  kings  must  have 
suggested  the  contrast  of  his  own  life ;  but  he 
was  pleased  with  the  fancy  that  their  musical 
genius  had  come  to  him  through  heredity,  for  it 
confirmed  his  opinion  that  "  if  a  man  made  him 
self  an  expert  in  any  particular  branch  of  human 
activity  there  would  result  the  strong  tendency 
that  a  peculiar  aptitude  towards  the  same  branch 
would  be  found  among  some  of  his  descendants." 
Another  Lanier  in  whom  he  was  interested 
was  Sir  John  Lanier,  the  story  of  whose  bravery 
at  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  in  1690,  he  first  read 
in  Macaulay's  "  History  of  England."  Lanier's 
hope  and  belief-  that  the  family  would  some 
day  be  able  to  fill  the  intervals  satisfactorily 
connecting  Sir  John  Lanier  with  the  musicians 
of  the  court  have  not  been  realized,  nor  has 
any  satisfactory  study  been  made  of  the  coming 
of  the  Laniers  to  America.  The  best  evidence 
of  the  connection  between  the  two  families  is 
found  in  a  deed  recorded  in  Prince  County,  Va., 
May  14,  1728,  from  Nicholas  Lanier  to  Holmes 
Boisseau  —  the  name  Nicholas  being  significant. 
It  is  certain  that  Thomas  Lanier,  along  with 
a  large  number  of  other  Huguenots,  settled  in 
Virginia  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  at  Manakin-town,  some  twenty  miles  from 
Kichmond.  Some  of  these  Huguenots,  notably 
the  Moncures,  the  Maurys,  the  Latanes,  and  the 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  13 

Flournoys,  became  connected  with  historic  fam 
ilies  of  Virginia.  There  was  a  tradition  in  the 
Lanier  family  as  well  as  in  the  Washington  fam 
ily,  that  Thomas  Lanier  married  an  aunt  of 
George  Washington,  but  this  has  been  proved 
to  be  untrue.1  The  Laniers  were  related  by  mar 
riage  to  the  Washingtons  of  Surry  County.  They 
established  themselves  in  the  middle  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century  in  Brunswick  and  Lunenburg 
counties  of  Virginia,  as  prosperous  planters; 
they  did  not,  however,  rank  either  in  dignity  or 
in  wealth  with  the  older  gentry  of  Virginia.  In  a 
letter  written  in  1877  Lanier  gives  in  full  the 
various  branches  of  the  Lanier  family  as  they 
separated  from  this  point  and  went  into  all  parts 
of  the  United  States.  One  branch  joined  the 
pioneers  who  went  up  through  Tennessee  into 
Kentucky  and  thence  to  Indiana.  The  most  fa 
mous  of  these  was  Mr.  J.  F.  D.  Lanier,  who  played 
a  prominent  part  in  the  development  of  the  rail 
road  system  of  the  West,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
Civil  War  had  become  one  of  the  leading  bank 
ers  in  New  York  city.  He  was  a  financial  ad 
viser  of  President  Lincoln,  and  represented  the 
government  abroad  in  some  important  trans 
actions.  He  was  of  genuine  help  to  Sidney  Lanier 

1  William  and  Mary  Quarterly,  iii,  71-74,  1895  (article  by 
Horace  Edwin  Hayden)  ;  iii,  137-139,  October,  1894  (by 
Moncure  D.  Conway,  with  editorial  comment)  ;  iv,  35-36,  July, 
1895  (by  the  editor,  Lyon  G.  Tyler). 


14  SIDNEY   LANIER 

at  critical  times  in  the  latter's  life.  His  son, 
Mr.  Charles  Lanier,  now  a  banker  of  New  York, 
was  a  close  friend  of  the  poet,  and  after  his 
death  presented  busts  of  him  to  Johns  Hopkins 
University  and  the  public  library  of  Macon. 

The  branch  of  the  Lanier  family  with  which 
Sidney  was  connected,  moved  from  Virginia 
into  Rockingham  County,  N.  C.  Sampson  La 
nier  was  a  well-to-do  farmer  —  a  country  gen 
tleman,  "  fond  of  good  horses  and  fox  hounds." 
Several  of  his  sons  went  to  the  newer  States  of 
Georgia  and  Alabama.  Of  these  was  Sterling 
Lanier,  the  grandfather  of  the  poet,  who  lived 
for  a  while  in  Athens,  Ga.,  and  was  afterwards 
a  hotel-keeper  in  Macon  and  Montgomery.  By 
the  time  of  the  Civil  War  he  had  amassed  a  con 
siderable  fortune.  In  a  letter  written  in  1844 
from  Macon  we  learn  that  he  was  an  ardent 
Methodist.  His  daughters  were  being  educated 
in  the  Wesleyan  Female  College  in  that  city,  his 
son  Sidney  had  sailed  recently  from  Charleston 
to  France,  and  expected  to  travel  through  Sicily, 
Italy,  and  other  parts  of  Europe  on  account  of 
his  health.  He  was  giving  his  younger  sons  the 
best  education  then  attainable  in  Georgia. 

His  son  Robert  Sampson  Lanier  had  four 
years  before  returned  from  Randolph-Macon 
College,  Virginia,  and  was  at  the  time  the  letter 
was  written  beginning  the  practice  of  law.  He 


ANCESTRY  AND  BOYHOOD  15 

never  became  a  lawyer  of  the  first  rank,  but  he 
was  universally  esteemed  for  his  "  fine  presence," 
his  "  social  gentleness,"  and  his  "  persistent  habit 
of  methodical  industry."  "  During  all  of  his  long 
and  active  professional  life,"  says  the  late  Wash 
ington  Dessau,  "  he  never  allowed  anything  to 
interfere  with  his  devotion  to  his  calling  as  a 
lawyer.  No  desire  for  office  attracted  him ;  no 
other  business  of  profit  or  honor  ever  diminished 
for  a  moment  his  devotion  for  his  professional 
duties.  In  the  year  1850  he  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Georgia,  and  from 
that  period  down  to  the  time  of  his  death  the 
name  of  his  firm  appears  in  nearly  every  volume 
of  the  reports,  indicating  the  wide  extent  of  his 
business.  ...  As  a  lawyer,  while  not  aspiring 
to  be  a  brilliant  advocate,  he  was  a  most  pro 
found  and  able  reasoner,  thoroughly  versed  and 
grounded  in  the  knowledge  of  the  common  law, 
well  prepared  with  a  knowledge  of  current  deci 
sions  and  in  the  learning  that  grows  out  of  them. 
...  In  his  social  intercourse  he  was  a  gentleman 
of  the  purest  and  most  refined  type.  ...  At 
his  own  home,  at  the  homes  of  others,  in  casual 
meetings,  in  travel,  everywhere,  he  always  ex 
hibited  toward  those  who  met  him  an  unbroken 
front  of  courtesy,  gentleness,  and  refinement."  1 

1  Report  of  the  llth  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Georgia  Bar  As 
sociation,  Atlanta,  1894. 


16  SIDNEY  LANIER 

He  was  just  such  a  lawyer  as  Lanier  would 
have  become  had  he  remained  in  that  profes 
sion  ;  indeed,  son  and  father  were  very  much 
alike.  The  father  was  a  man  of  "  considerable 
literary  acquirements  and  exquisite  taste."  He 
was  fond  of  Shakspere,  Addison,  and  Sir  Wal 
ter  Scott,  having  the  literary  taste  of  the  gen 
tlemen  of  the  old  South.  The  letters  written 
to  his  son  show  decided  cultivation.  They  show 
also  that  he  was  in  thorough  sympathy  with  his 
son's  intellectual  life.  The  letter  written  by 
Lanier  to  his  father  from  Baltimore  in  1873 
may  lead  one  to  think  otherwise.  Mr.  Lanier 
was  opposed,  as  were  most  of  the  men  of  his 
section,  to  a  young  man's  entering  upon  a  mu 
sical  or  poetic  career,  but  more  than  two  hun 
dred  letters  written  by  son  to  father  and  many 
from  father  to  son  prove  that  their  relations 
during  the  entire  career  of  the  poet  were  unusu 
ally  close  and  sympathetic.  In  the  earlier  years, 
Lanier  sent  his  poems  to  his  father,  and  valued 
highly  his  criticism,  and  in  later  years  he  re 
ceived  from  him  financial  aid  and  counsel. 

While  Robert  Sampson  Lanier  was  at  college 
in  Virginia  he  met  Mary  Jane  Anderson,  the 
daughter  of  Hezekiah  Anderson,  a  Virginia 
planter  who  attained  success  in  the  political  life 
of  that  State.  They  were  married  in  1840,  and 
Sidney  was  their  first-born.  The  poet  thus  in- 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  17 

herited  on  his  mother's  side  Scotch-Irish  blood, 
an  element  in  Southern  life  which  has  been  often 
underestimated.  She  proved  to  be  a  hard-work 
ing  woman,  caring  little  for  social  life,  but  thor 
oughly  interested  in  the  religious  training  of  her 
children.  Her  husband,  although  nominally  a 
Methodist,  was  not  actively  identified  with  the 
church,  but  willingly  acquiesced  in  the  somewhat 
rigid  Presbyterian  discipline  that  prevailed  in 
the  home.  The  children  —  Sidney,  Clifford,  and 
Gertrude  —  were  taught  the  strictest  tenets 
of  the  Calvinistic  creed.  When  Lanier  after 
wards,  in  Baltimore,  lived  a  somewhat  more 
liberal  life — both  as  to  creed  and  conduct  — 
he  wrote :  "If  the  constituents  and  guardians 
of  my  childhood  —  those  good  Presbyterians 
who  believed  me  a  model  for  the  Sunday-school 
children  of  all  times  —  could  have  witnessed  my 
acts  and  doings  this  day,  1  know  not  what  groans 
of  sorrowful  regret  would  arise  in  my  behalf." 

The  seriousness  of  this  life  was  broken,  how 
ever,  on  week  days.  Southern  Puritanism  dif 
fered  from  the  early  New  England  Puritanism  in 
a  certain  affectionateness  and  sociability.  The 
mother  could  play  well  on  the  piano,  and  fre 
quently  sang  with  the  children  hymns  and  popu 
lar  melodies.  Between  the  two  brothers  there 
was  from  the  first  the  most  beautiful  relation,  as 
throughout  the  rest  of  their  lives :  comrades  in 


18  SIDNEY  LANIER 

boyhood,  comrades  during  the  War,  comrades  in 
their  first  literary  work,  and  to  the  end.  On 
Saturdays  they  went  to  "  the  boys'  hunting  fields 

—  happy  hunting  grounds,  redolent  of  hickory 
nuts,   scaly  barks,  and   rose-blushing,    luscious, 
haw  apples.  .  .  .  Into  these  woods,  across  yon 
marsh,  we  plunged  every  permissible  Saturday 
for  a  day  among  doves,  blackbirds,  robins,  plov 
ers,  snipes,  or  rabbits." l    Sometimes   they  en 
joyed  fishing  in  the  near-by  brook  or  the  larger 
river.    The  two  brothers  were  devoted  to  their 
sister  Gertrude,  to  whom  Sidney  referred  in  later 
years  as  his  "  vestal  sister,  who  had,  more  per 
fectly  than  all  the  men  or  women  of  the  earth, 
nay,  more  perfectly  than  any  star  or  any  dream," 
represented  to  him  "  the  simple  majesty  and  the 
serene  purity  of  the  Winged  Folk  up  Yonder." 

The  beauty  of  this  simple  home  life  cannot  well 
be  overestimated  in  its  influence  on  Lanier's 
later  life.  He  had  nothing  of  the  Bohemian  in 
his  nature.  He  was  throughout  his  life  fully  alive 
to  all  human  ties,  fulfilling  every  relationship, 
whether  of  son,  brother,  father,  husband,  or  friend. 
His  other  relatives  —  uncles,  aunts,  and  cousins, 

—  filled  a  large  place  in  his  early  life,  especially 
his  mother's  brother,  Judge  Clifford  Anderson, 
who  was  the  law  partner  of  Lanier's  father  and 
afterwards  Attorney-General  of  Georgia ;  and 

1  Clifford  Lanier,  The  Chautauquan,  July,  1895. 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  19 

his  father's  sister,  Mrs.  Watt,  who  from  much 
travel  and  by  association  with  leading  men  and 
women  of  the  South  brought  into  Lanier's  life 
the  atmosphere  of  a  larger  social  world  than  that 
in  which  he  was  born. 

Nor  did  Lanier  live  apart  from  the  life  in 
Macon.  Although  in  later  years  he  felt  strongly 
the  contrast  between  himself  and  his  environment, 
he  always  spoke  of  his  native  place  with  the 
greatest  affection,  and  it  was  among  Macon 
people  that  he  found  some  of  his  best  friends  in 
his  adopted  city.  Its  natural  beauty  appealed  to 
him  from  the  beginning  —  the  river  Ocmulgee, 
the  large  forests  of  oak-trees  stretching  in  every 
direction,  the  hills  above  the  city,  for  which  he 
often  yearned,  from  the  plains  of  Texas,  or  the 
flats  of  Florida,  or  the  crowded  streets  of  Bal 
timore.  The  climate  was  agreeable.  Describing 
this  section,  Lanier  said :  "  Surely,  along  that 
ample  stretch  of  generous  soil,  where  the  Appa 
lachian  ruggednesses  calm  themselves  into  pleas 
ant  hills  before  dying  quite  away  in  the  seaboard 
levels,  a  man  can  find  such  temperances  of  heaven 
arid  earth  —  enough  of  struggle  with  nature  to 
draw  out  manhood,  with  enough  of  bounty  to 
sanction  the  struggle  —  that  a  more  exquisite 
co-adaptation  of  all  blessed  circumstances  for 
man's  life  need  not  be  sought."  1 

1  Music  and  Poetry,  p.  134. 


20  SIDNEY  LANIER 

Macon  was  the  capital  of  Middle  Georgia,  the 
centre  of  trade  for  sixty  miles  around.  There  was 
among  the  citizens  an  aggressive  public  spirit, 
which  made  it  the  rival  in  commercial  life  of  the 
older  cities,  Savannah  and  Augusta ;  before  the 
War  it  was  a  more  important  city  than  Atlanta. 
It  was  one  of  the  first  towns  to  push  the  building 
of  railroads;  it  became  "the  keystone  of  the 
roads  grappling  with  the  ocean  at  the  east  and 
with  the  waters  beyond  the  mountains  at  the 
west."  The  richer  planters  and  merchants  lived 
on  the  hills  above  the  city  —  in  their  costly  man 
sions  with  luxuriant  flower  gardens  —  while  the 
professional  men  and  the  middle  classes  lived  in 
the  lower  part  of  the  city.  Social  lines  were  not, 
however,  so  sharply  drawn  here  as  in  cities  like 
Richmond  or  Charleston.  Middle  Georgia  was 
perhaps  the  most  democratic  section  of  the  South. 
It  was  a  democracy,  it  is  true,  working  within 
the  limitations  of  slavery,1  and  greatly  tempered 
with  the  feudal  ideas  of  the  older  States,  but  it 
was  a  life  which  gave  room  for  the  development 
of  well-marked  individual  types.  There  were 
many  Georgia  "  Crackers  "  in  the  surrounding 
country ;  they  were  even  recognized  more  than  in 

1  In  Macon  a  great  many  citizens  had  no  slaves  at  all,  and 
even  those  who  had  them  had  only  a  few.  In  1850  the  white 
population  was  3323,  while  there  were  only  2352  slaves.  In 
1859,  when  the  population  had  grown  to  8000,  the  proportion 
was  maintained. 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  21 

other  States  as  part  of  the  social  structure.  While 
still  a  young  boy  Lanier  was  delivery  clerk  in  the 
Macon  post-office,  and  entertained  the  family  at 
nights  by  "  mimicry  of  their  funny  speech."  In 
later  life  he  wrote  dialect  poems,  setting  forth  the 
humor  of  these  people,  and  drew  upon  their  speech  -' 
for  illustrations  of  philological  changes  in  lan 
guage. 

In  Macon  hospitality  was  regarded  as  an  in 
dispensable,  even  sacred  duty.  Cordiality  and 
kindness  in  all  the  ordinary  relations  of  men  and 
women  made  up  for  whatever  deficiencies  there 
were  in  art  and  literature.  Professor  Le  Conte, 
who  lived  in  Macon  during  the  boyhood  of  La 
nier,  speaking  of  some  weeks  he  spent  there  dur 
ing  a  college  vacation,  says,  "  Oh,  the  boundless 
hospitality  of  those  times  —  a  continual  round 
of  entertainments,  musicales,  and  evening  par 
ties,  .  .  .  horseback  rides  and  boat  rides  during 
the  day  and  piano-playing,  singing,  fluting,  and 
impromptu  cotillions  and  Virginia  reels  in  the 
evening !  "  1  The  Lanier  House,  a  hotel  owned 
by  Sterling  Lanier  from  1844  to  1854,  was  the 
centre  of  this  social  life.  Here  many  distinguished 
men  were  entertained  and  many  receptions  were 
held.  The  proprietor  was  a  typical  "  mine  host," 
endeavoring  to  throw  around  his  guests  some 
of  the  atmosphere  of  the  finer  Southern  homes. 
1  The  Autobiography  of  Joseph  Le  Conte. 


22  SIDNEY   LANIER 

In  1851  President  Fillmore  and  his  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  John  P.  Kennedy,  visited  Macon  and 
were  entertained  at  this  hotel.  Macon  was  not  with 
out  its  cultivated  people.  Young  ladies  studied 
music  in  New  York  and  brought  into  the  private 
life  of  the  city  an  atmosphere  of  musical  cul 
ture.  Now  and  then  students  were  sent  to  the 
universities  of  the  East.  A  group  of  professional 
and  business  men  —  E.  A.  Nisbet,  Washington 
Poe,  Charles  Day,  Colonel  Whittle,  L.  Q.  C. 
Lamar  (in  his  earlier  days)  —  had  the  refine 
ment  and  cordiality  characteristic  of  the  old 
regime. 

The  religious  spirit  ran  high  in  Macon.  While 
the  Presbyterian  church  had  a  better  educated 
clergy  and  proportionately  a  greater  number  of 
educated  personages  among  the  laity,  the  Meth 
odist  and  Baptist  churches  dominated  the  life  of 
the  community.  Revivals  that  recall  the  Great 
Awakening  in  New  England  in  the  time  of  Jona 
than  Edwards  were  frequent.  The  most  popular 
preacher  in  Macon  —  George  F.  Pierce,  after 
wards  bishop  in  the  Southern  Methodist  church 
—  is  said  to  have  preached  the  terrors  of  the 
law  so  plainly  that  the  editor  of  a  long  extinct 
Universalist  paper  said  he  could  smell  fire  and 
brimstone  half  a  mile  from  the  church.  The 
type  of  religion  that  prevailed  was  emotional, 
but  in  an  earlier  stage  of  society  it  was  a  great 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  23 

barrier  against  immorality.  The  clergy  did  not 
raise  the  question  of  the  ethics  of  slavery,  — 
on  the  other  hand  they  defended  it  on  biblical 
grounds,  —  but  they  did  enjoin  upon  masters 
the  duty  of  kindness  to  slaves.  Many  of  them 
were  not  cultivated  men,  but  they  laid  the  foun 
dation  for  a  better  civilization  in  a  stern  and 
righteous  social  life  which  flowered  in  the  next 
generation.  "The  only  burning  issues  were  sprin 
kling  versus  immersion,  freewill  versus  predesti 
nation,"  and  over  these  questions  the  churches 
fought  with  energy.  Divided  though  they  were 
on  many  points,  they  agreed  in  resisting  the 
forces  of  modern  thought  that  were  making  for 
a  more  liberal  theology. 

Although  the  people  of  Macon  were  thoroughly 
alive  to  the  commercial,  social,  and  religious  wel 
fare  of  the  community,  they  provided  no  adequate 
school  system.  Lanier  was  schooled  "  in  small 
private  one -roomed  establishments,  taught  by  a 
Mrs.  Anderson,  a  Mr.  Hancock,  or  by  that  dear 
old  eccentric  dominie,  4  Jake  '  Danforth.  One 
of  these  schools  stood  in  a  grove  of  oak  and 
hickory-nut  trees  and  was  called  the  'Cademy. 
Sidney  was  bright  in  studies,  but  while  parsing, 
reading,  writing,  and  figuring,  he  was  also  chuck 
ing  nuts  from  the  tops  of  the  tall  trees,  sym 
pathizing  with  the  dainty  half-angel,  half-ani 
mal  flying  squirrels,  and  drinking  deep  draughts 


24  SIDNEY   LANIER 

of  the  love  of  nature  from  the   cool,  solacing 
oaks."  i 

Lanier  was  undoubtetjly  influenced  by  the  life 
in  Macon  ;  positively  influenced  in  that  much  of 
this  life  became  a  part  of  his  own,  and  negatively 
in  that  he  reacted  against  many  conditions  and 
ideals  that  prevailed  there.  All  the  time  there 
was  developing  in  him  his  own  genius.  He  did 
not  remember  a  time  when  he  could  not  play 
upon  almost  any  musical  instrument.  "  When  he 
was  seven  years  old  he  made  his  first  effort  at 
music  upon  an  improvised  reed  cut  from  the 
neighboring  river  bank,  with  cork  stopping  the 
ends  and  a  mouth  hole  and  six  finger  holes  ex 
temporized  at  the  side.  With  this  he  sought  the 
woods  to  emulate  the  trills  and  cadences  of  the 
song  birds."  Santa  Claus's  gift  one  year  took 
the  form  of  a  small,  yellow,  one-keyed  flute, 
on  which  simple  instrument  he  would  "  practice 
with  the  passion  of  a  virtuoso."  Like  Schumann, 
he  organized  an  orchestra  among  his  friends  and 
young  playmates.  Simultaneously  he  was  re 
ceiving  his  first  initiation  into  the  joy  of  litera 
ture.  He  would  frequently  retire  from  playing 
with  his  brother  and  other  companions  to  the 
library  of  his  father,  where  he  followed  with  ab 
sorbing  interest  the  stories  of  Sir  Walter  Scott, 

1  Article  by  Clifford  Lanier,  in  Gulf  States  Historical  Maga 
zine,  July,  1903. 


ANCESTRY  AND   BOYHOOD  25 

the  romances  of  Froissart,  the  adventures  of 
Gil  Bias,  and  other  stories  that  his  boyish  mind 
delighted  in.  He  was  already  producing  among 
his  playmates  a  sense  of  the  distinction  of  his 
personality,  that  caused  them  to  reverence  him 
as  one  above  them. 


CHAPTER  II 

COLLEGE   DAYS 

JANUARY  6, 1857,  Lanier  entered  the  sophomore 
class  in  Oglethorpe  University,  situated  at  Mid 
way,  Ga.  —  two  miles  from  Milledgeville,  which 
was  then  the  capital  of  the  State.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  a  greater  contrast  than  that 
between  the  sleepy  town  of  Milledgeville  and 
progressive  Macon,  or  between  Oglethorpe  and 
the  better  colleges  of  the  South  at  the  present 
time.  The  essentially  primitive  life  of  the  col 
lege  is  seen  in  an  act  which  was  passed  by  the 
legislature  making  it  unlawful  for  any  person  to 
"  establish,  keep,  or  maintain  any  store  or  shop 
of  any  description  for  vending  any  species  of 
merchandise,  groceries  or  confectioneries  within 
a  mile  and  a  half  of  the  University."  It  was  a 
denominational  college  established  by  the  Pres 
byterian  Church,  and  belonged  to  the  synods  of 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  Like  many  other 
denominational  colleges  throughout  the  South, 
it  arose  in  response  to  a  demand  that  attention 
should  be  given  in  education  to  the  cultiva 
tion  of  a  strong  religious  faith  in  the  minds 


SIDNEY  LANIER  AT  THE   AGE  OF  FIFTEEN 
From  au  ambrotype  in  the  possession  of  the  family 


COLLEGE   DAYS  27 

of  students.  The  older  State  universities  were 
supposed  to  be  dominated  by  the  aristocratic 
class  and  by  political  parties,  and  there  was  a 
tendency  in  them  towards  a  more  liberal  view  of 
religion  than  comported  with  an  orthodox  faith. 
The  origin  of  the  denominational  colleges  was 
similar  to  that  of  Princeton  and  the  smaller 
colleges  of  New  England.  Many  of  them,  with 
small  endowments  and  a  small  number  of  men 
in  the  faculty,  did  much  to  foster  intellectual  as 
well  as  spiritual  growth ;  their  place  in  the  his 
tory  of  Southern  life  has  not  been  fully  appre 
ciated.  Before  the  public-school  system  of  later 
days  was  established,  they  did  much  to  educate 
the  masses  of  the  people. 

Oglethorpe,  at  the  time  when  Lanier  became 
a  student,  was  presided  over  by  Rev.  Samuel 
K.  Talmage,  originally  of  New  Jersey,  a  gradu 
ate  of  Princeton  and  a  tutor  there  for  three 
years.  He  was  a  warm  personal  friend  of  Alex 
ander  H.  Stephens,  and  was  known  throughout 
Georgia  as  a  preacher  of  much  power,  "  fore 
most  in  the  councils  of  his  church."  Another 
member  of  the  small  faculty  was  Charles  W. 
Lane,  of  the  department  of  mathematics,  of 
whom  one  of  his  friends  wrote  that  he  was  "  the 
sunniest,  sweetest  Calvinist  that  ever  nestled 
close  to  the  heart  of  Arminians  and  all  else  who 
loved  the  Master's  image  when  they  saw  it.  His 


28  SIDNEY   LANIER 

cottage  at  Midway  was  a  Bethel ;  it  was  God's 
house  and  heaven's  gate." 

The  piety  of  such  men  confirmed  in  Lanier  a 
natural  religious  fervor.  But  the  man  who  was 
destined  to  have  a  really  formative  influence  over 
him  was  James  Woodrow,  of  the  department 
of  science.  A  native  of  England  and  during  his 
younger  days  a  citizen  of  Pennsylvania,  he  had 
studied  at  Lawrence  Scientific  School  under 
Agassiz,  and  had  just  returned  from  two  years' 
study  in  Germany  when  Lanier  came  under  his 
influence.  Circumstances  were  such  that  he 
never  became  an  investigator  in  his  special  line 
of  work,  but  he  was  a  thorough  scholar  who  kept 
abreast  with  the  knowledge  of  his  subject.  He 
afterwards  became  professor  of  science  in  the 
Presbyterian  Theological  Seminary  at  Columbia, 
S.  C.,  and  later  the  president  of  the  University 
of  South  Carolina,  In  1873  and  1874  he  was 
the  champion  of  science  against  those  who  called 
the  church  "to  rise  in  arms  against  Physical 
Science  as  the  mortal  enemy  of  all  the  Christian 
holds  dear,  and  to  take  no  rest  until  this  infidel 
and  atheistic  foe  has  been  utterly  destroyed."  l 
Dr.  Woodrow  maintained  that  the  science  of 
theology,  as  a  science,  is  equally  human  and  un 
inspired  with  the  science  of  geology.  He  cited 

1  An  Examination  of  Certain  Recent  Assaults  on  Physical 
Science.     By  James  Woodrow.    Columbia,  1873. 


COLLEGE  DAYS  29 

illustrations  from  the  long  warfare  of  science  and 
theology  to  show  that  the  church  would  make  a 
great  mistake  if  it  attempted  to  shut  off  the 
human  intellect  from  the  search  of  truth  as  rev 
erent  investigators  in  the  realms  of  geology  and 
biology  might  find  it.  Comparing  scientific  truth 
to  a  great  ocean,  he  speaks  of  an  opponent  of 
science  as  "  brandishing  his  mop  against  each  suc 
ceeding  wave,  pushing  it  back  with  all  his  might, 
but  the  ocean  rolls  on,  and  never  minds  him  ; 
science  is  utterly  unconscious  of  his  opposition." 
This  point  of  view,  maintained  even  to  the  point 
of  accepting  the  theory  of  evolution,  led  eventu 
ally  to  his  trial  and  condemnation  by  the  South 
ern  Presbyterian  Church.  Throughout  the  whole 
controversy  he  maintained  a  calm  and  moderate 
temper  and  never  abated  in  the  least  his  accept 
ance  of  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Such  a  man,  coming  into  the  life  of 
Lanier  at  a  formative  period,  influenced  him 
profoundly.  He  set  his  mind  going  in  the  direc 
tion  which  he  afterwards  followed  with  great 
zest,  the  value  of  science  in  modern  life  and  its 
relation  to  poetry  and  religion.  He  also  revealed 
to  him  the  meaning  of  genuine  scholarship. 

Teacher  and  pupil  became  intimate  friends. 
In  a  letter  addressed  to  the  writer,  Professor 
Woodrow  says  :  "  When  he  graduated  I  caused 
him  to  be  appointed  tutor  in  the  University,  so 


30  SIDNEY  LANIER 

that  I  became  better  acquainted  with  him,  and 
liked  him  better  and  better.  I  was  professor  of 
natural  science,  and  often  took  him  to  ramble 
with  me,  observing  and  studying  whatever  we 
saw,  but  also  talking  about  everything  either  of 
us  cared  for.  About  the  same  time  I  was  licensed 
to  preach,  and  spent  my  Saturdays  and  Sundays 
in  preaching  to  feeble  churches  and  in  school- 
houses,  court  houses,  and  private  houses,  within 
forty  or  more  miles  of  the  college ;  trying  to 
make  my  Sunday  night  services  come  within 
twenty-five  miles  of  home,  so  that  I  could  drive 
to  the  college  in  time  for  my  Monday  morning 
sunrise  lecture.  Every  now  and  then  I  would 
invite  Lanier  to  go  with  me.  During  such  drives 
we  were  constantly  engaged  without  interruption 
in  our  conversation.  In  these  ways,  and  in  listen 
ing  frequently  to  his  marvelous  flute-playing,  we 
were  much  together.  We  were  both  young  and 
fond  of  study." 

The  first  letter  written  by  Lanier  to  his  father 
from  college  announces  his  admission  to  the 
sophomore  class :  "  I  have  just  done  studying 
to-night  my  first  lesson,  to  wit,  forty-five  lines  of 
Horace,  which  I  <  did  '  in  about  fifteen  minutes." 
Other  letters  show  that  he  was  a  very  hard  stu 
dent  and  intensely  conscientious.  At  one  time 
having  violated  one  of  his  father's  regulations, 
that  he  was  not  under  any  circumstances  to 


COLLEGE  DAYS  31 

borrow  money  from  his  college  mates,  he  wrote: 
"  My  father,  I  have  sinned.  With  what  intensity 
of  thought,  with  what  deep  and  earnest  reflec 
tion  have  I  contemplated  this  lately !  My  heart 
throbs  with  the  intensity  of  its  anguish.  ...  If 
by  hard  study  and  good  conduct  I  can  atone  for 
that,  God  in  heaven  knows  that  I  shall  not  be 
found  wanting.  .  .  .  Not  a  night  passes  but 
what  the  supplication,  God  bless  my  parents,  as 
cends  to  the  great  mercy  seat."  At  another  time 
he  write*-  for  the  following  books:  Olmsted's 
Philosophy,  Blair's  Rhetoric,  Cicero  de  Oratore, 
and  an  Analytical  Geometry.  He  already  has 
some  Greek  tragedies  which  he  is  to  study.  Con 
templating  his  junior  year,  he  writes :  "  I  feel 
quite  enthusiastic  on  the  subject  of  studying. 
.  .  .  The  very  name  of  Junior  has  something  of 
study-inspiring  and  energy-exciting  to  me." 

Lanier  pursued  the  limited  curriculum  of  the 
college  with  zeal  and  with  mastery.  From  his 
letters  it  is  seen  that  he  read  such  of  the  Greek 
and  Latin  classics  as  were  generally  studied  in 
American  colleges  at  that  time.  He  mastered 
mathematics  beyond  any  man  of  his  class,  and 
became  interested  in  philosophy  and  science. 
His  alert  mind  and  energy  enabled  him  to  take 
at  once  a  position  of  leadership  in  the  college. 
He  joined  a  secret  literary  society,  of  which 
he  wrote  to  his  father :  "  I  have  derived  more 


32  SIDNEY  LANIER 

benefit  from  that,  than  any  one  of  my  collegiate 
studies.  We  meet  together  in  a  nice  room,  read 
compositions,  declaim,  and  debate  upon  interest 
ing  subjects." 

His  contact  with  these  specially  intimate  friends 
was  a  thoroughly  healthy  one.  He  took  part  in 
their  sports  and  mischief-making  as  well  as  in 
their  more  serious  pastimes.  "  I  shall  never  for 
get,"  says  one  of  his  companions,  "  those  moon 
light  nights  at  old  Oglethorpe,  when,  after  study 
hours,  we  would  crash  up  the  stairway  and  get 
out  on  the  cupola,  making  the  night  merry  with 
music,  song,  and  laughter.  Sid  would  play  upon 
his  flute  like  one  inspired,  while  the  rest  of  us 
would  listen  in  solemn  silence." 

Besides  being  a  faithful  student,  Lanier  was 
an  omnivorous  reader  in  the  wide  fields  of  Eng 
lish  literature,  sharing  his  tastes  with  some  of 
his  companions  who  with  him  lived  in  "  an  at 
mosphere  of  ardent  and  loyal  friendship."  "I 
can  recall,"  says  Mr.  T.  F.  Newell,  his  class 
mate  and  room-mate,1  "  those  Attic  nights,  for 
they  are  among  the  dearest  and  tenderest  recol 
lections  of  my  life,  when  with  a  few  chosen  com 
panions  we  would  read  from  some  treasured 
volume,  it  may  have  been  Tennyson  or  Carlyle 
or  Christopher  North's  4  Noctes  Ambrosianae,' 
or  we  would  make  the  hours  vocal  with  music  and 
1  Quoted  from  Baskervill's  Southern  Writers,  p.  149. 


COLLEGE   DAYS  33 

song  ;  those  happy  nights,  which  were  veritable 
refections  of  the  gods.  .  .  .  On  such  occasions  I 
have  seen  him  walk  up  and  down  the  room  and 
with  his  flute  extemporize  the  sweetest  music 
ever  vouchsafed  to  mortal  ear.  At  such  times  it 
would  seem  as  if  his  soul  were  in  a  trance,  and 
could  only  find  existence,  expression,  in  the 
ecstasy  of  tone,  that  would  catch  our  souls  with 
his  into  the  very  seventh  heaven  of  harmony. 
Or,  in  merry  mood,  I  have  seen  him  take  a  banjo, 
for  he  could  play  on  any  instrument,  and  as 
with  deft  fingers  he  would  strike  some  strange 
new  note  or  chord,  you  would  see  his  eyes 
brighten,  he  would  begin  to  smile  and  laugh  as 
if  his  very  soul  were  tickled,  while  his  hearers 
would  catch  the  inspiration,  and  an  old-fashioned 
4  walk-round '  and  '  negro  breakdown,'  in  which  all 
would  participate,  would  be  the  inevitable  result. 
At  other  times,  with  our  musical  instruments, 
we  would  sally  forth  into  the  night  and  'neath 
moon  and  stars  and  under  '  Bonny  Bell  window 
panes '  —  ah,  those  serenades  !  were  there  ever 
or  will  there  ever  be  anything  like  them  again  ? 
—  when  the  velvet  flute  notes  of  Lanier  would 
fall  pleasantly  upon  the  night." 

Speaking  further  of  his  reading  and  of  the 
way  in  which  he  shared  his  delight  with  others, 
the  same  writer  says :  "  I  recall  how  he  de 
lighted  in  the  quaint  and  curious  of  our  old 


34  SIDNEY   LANIER 

literature.  I  remember  that  it  was  he  who  intro 
duced  me  to  that  rare  old  book,  Burton's  4  Ana 
tomy  of  Melancholy,'  whose  name  and  size  had 
frightened  me  as  I  first  saw  it  on  the  shelves, 
but  which  I  found  to  be  wholly  different  from 
what  its  title  would  indicate ;  and  old  Jeremy 
Taylor,  '  the  poet-preacher ; '  and  Keats's  '  En- 
dymion,'  and  '  Chatterton,'  the  4  marvelous  boy 
who  perished  in  his  pride.7  Yes,  I  first  learned 
the  story  of  the  Monk  Rowley  and  his  wonderful 
poems  with  Lanier.  And  Shelley  and  Coleridge 
and  Christopher  North,  and  that  strange,  weird 
poem  of  4  The  Ettrick  Shepherd  '  of  4  How  Kil- 
meny  Came  Hame,'  and  a  whole  sweet  host  and 
noble  company,  'rare  and  complete.'  Yes, 
Tennyson,  with  his  '  Locksley  Hall '  and  his  4  In 
Memoriam  '  and  his  '  Maud,'  which  last  we  almost 
knew  by  heart.  And  then  old  Carlyle,  with  his 
4  Sartor  Resartus,'  '  Hero- Worship,'  4  Past  and 
Present,'  and  his  wonderful  book  of  essays,  es 
pecially  the  ones  on  Burns  and  Jean  Paul,  '  The 
Only.'  Without  a  doubt  it  was  Carlyle  who  first 
enkindled  in  Lanier  a  love  of  German  literature 
and  a  desire  to  know  more  of  the  language." 

His  flute-playing  and  extensive  reading  did 
not  prevent  Lanier  from  graduating  at  the  head 
of  his  class  in  July,  I860.1  His  oration  was  on 

1  He  was  out  of  college  the  year  1858-9,  being  clerk  in  the 
Macon  post-office.    The  college  records  show  that  he  received 


COLLEGE  DAYS  35 

the  ambitious  subject,  "  The  Philosophy  of  His 
tory."  One  of  the  most  important  events  in  his 
early  life  was  the  vacation  following  his  gradua 
tion.  His  grandfather  had  bought  in  the  moun 
tains  of  East  Tennessee,  at  Montvale  Springs, 
a  large  estate,  on  which  had  been  built  a  beau 
tiful  hotel.  During  the  summer  his  children  and 
grandchildren  — some  twenty-five  in  all  —  visited 
him.  Here  they  enjoyed  the  pleasures  of  hunt 
ing,  fishing,  and  social  life.  There  were  many 
visitors  from  the  Southern  States  to  this  "  Sara 
toga  of  the  South."  "  What  an  assemblage 
of  facilities  for  enjoyment,"  Lanier  writes,  "  I 
have  up  here  in  the  mountains,  —  kinsfolk, 
men  friends,  women  friends,  books,  music,  wine, 
hunting,  fishing,  billiards,  tenpins,  chess,  eating, 
mosquitoless  sleeping,  mountain  scenery,  and  a 
month  of  idleness."  This  experience,  somewhat 
idealized,  is  the  basis  of  the  first  part  of  "  Tiger 
Lilies."  Here  Lanier  had  the  opportunity  of  see 
ing  at  its  best  the  life  of  the  old  South  just 
before  it  vanished  in  the  cataclysm  of  the  Civil 
War.  Of  that  life  he  afterwards  wrote :  "  No 
thing  can  be  more  pitiable  than  that  at  the  time 
when  this  amiable  outcome  of  the  old  Southern 
civilization  became  known  to  the  world  at  large, 
it  became  so  through  being  laid  bare  by  the 

the  highest  marks  in  his  senior  year,  but  shared  the  honors  of 
graduation  with  one  whose  record  for  the  entire  course  was 
equal  to  his. 


36  SIDNEY   LANIER 

sharp  spasm  of  civil  war.  There  was  a  time 
when  all  our  eyes  and  faces  were  distorted  with 
passion ;  none  of  us  either  saw  or  showed  true. 
Thrice  pitiable,  one  says  again,  that  the  fairer 
aspects  of  a  social  state,  which  though  neither  per 
fect  as  its  violent  friends  preached,  nor  satanic  as 
its  violent  enemies  denounced,  yet  gave  rise  to  so 
many  beautiful  relations  of  honor  and  fidelity, 
should  have  now  gone  to  the  past,  to  remain  il 
luminated  only  by  the  unfavorable  glare  of  acci 
dentally  associated  emotions  in  which  no  man 
can  see  clearly." 1 

But  while  Lanier  was  thoroughly  identified 
with  this  life,  he  was  at  the  time  dreaming  of  a 
career  which  was  not  fostered  by  it  —  a  career 
in  which  music  and  poetry  should  be  the  domi 
nating  figures.  The  scene  in  the  first  book  of 
"  Tiger  Lilies  "  of  a  band  of  friends  gathered  on 
the  balcony  of  John  Sterling's  house  —  a  palace 
of  art  reared  by  Lanier's  imagination  in  the 
mountains  of  East  Tennessee  —  is  strictly  auto 
biographical.  As  they  watch  the  sunset  over 
the  valley,  the  rich  notes  of  violin,  flute,  and 
piano  blend  with  the  beauty  of  nature ;  the 
future  of  music  is  the  theme  and  poetry  the 
comment.  The  various  characters  of  that  imma 
ture  romance  quote  from  Emerson,  Carlyle,  and 
Richter.  As  they  talk  upon  the  theme  so  dear 

1  Florida :  Its  Scenery,  Climate,  and  History,  p.  232. 


COLLEGE   DAYS  37 

to  their  imagination  twilight  comes.  "And  so 
the  last  note  floated  out  over  the  rock,  over  the 
river,  over  the  twilight  to  the  west." 

With  something  of  the  power  of  Charles 
Egbert  Craddock,  Lanier  writes  in  the  same  book 
of  the  mountain  scenery  of  that  region  :  "  Here 
grow  the  strong  sweet  trees,  like  brawny  men 
with  virgins'  hearts.  Here  wave  the  ferns,  and 
cling  the  mosses  and  clamber  the  reckless  vines. 
Here,  one's  soul  may  climb  as  upon  Pisgah,  and 
see  one's  land  of  peace,  seeing  Christ  who  made 
all  these  beautiful  things."  Again,  it  is  "the 
trees  that  ever  lifted  their  arms  toward  heaven, 
obeying  the  injunction  of  the  Apostle,  praying 
always,  —  the  great  uncomplaining  trees,  whose 
life  is  surely  the  finest  of  all  lives,  since  it  is 
nothing  but  a  continual  growing  and  being  beau 
tiful."  He  describes  a  moonlight  night  on  the 
mountains :  "  All  this  time  the  grace  of  moon 
light  lay  tenderly  upon  the  rugged  majesty  of 
the  mountains,  as  if  Desdemona  placed  a  dainty 
white  hand  upon  Othello's  brow.  All  this  time 
the  old  priestly  oaks  lifted  yearning  arms  to 
ward  the  stars,  and  a  mighty  company  of  leaf- 
chapleted  followers,  with  silent  reverence,  joined 
this  most  pathetic  prayer  of  these  dumb  minis 
ters  of  the  hills." 

After  this  enchanting  and  inspiring  expe 
rience,  he  returned  to  Oglethorpe  as  tutor:  it 


38  SIDNEY   LANIER 

was  to  be  a  year  of  hard  work,  especially  in 
Greek.  He  described  himself  at  this  period  as 
"  a  spare-built  boy,  of  average  height  and  under 
weight,  mostly  addicted  to  hard  study,  long 
reveries,  and  exhausting  smokes  with  a  German 
pipe."  He  did  much  miscellaneous  reading  and 
was  busy  with  "  hints  and  fragments  of  a  poetical, 
musical  conception,  —  a  sort  of  musical  drama 
of  the  peasant  uprising  in  France,  called  the 
Jacquerie,"  which  continued  to  interest  him  dur 
ing  the  remainder  of  his  life,  but  which  re 
mained  unfinished  at  his  death.  If  he  wrote  any 
poetry,  it  has  not  been  preserved.  His  brother  is 
of  the  opinion  that  his  earliest  efforts  were  Byron- 
esque,  if  not  Wertheresque.  "I  have  his  first 
attempt  at  poetry,"  he  says  ;  "  it  is  characteristic, 
it  is  not  suggestive  of  swallow  flights  of  song, 
but  of  an  eaglet  peering  up  toward  the  empy 
rean."  His  mind  at  this  time  turned  more  espe 
cially  in  the  direction  of  music.  He  jots  down  in 
one  of  his  note-books :  "  The  point  which  I 
wish  to  settle  is  merely  by  what  method  shall 
I  ascertain  what  I  am  fit  for  as  preliminary  to 
ascertaining  God's  will  with  reference  to  me  ;  or 
what  my  inclinations  are,  as  preliminary  to  ascer 
taining  what  my  capacities  are  —  that  is,  what  I 
am  fit  for.  I  am  more  than  all  perplexed  by  this 
fact :  that  the  prime  inclination  —  that  is,  natu 
ral  bent  (which  I  have  checked,  though)  of  my 


COLLEGE   DAYS  39 

nature  is  to  music,  and  for  that  I  have  the  great 
est  talent ;  indeed,  not  boasting,  for  God  gave  it 
me,  I  have  an  extraordinary  musical  talent,  and 
feel  it  within  me  plainly  that  I  could  rise  as  high 
as  any  composer.  But  I  cannot  bring  myself  to 
believe  that  I  was  intended  for  a  musician,  be 
cause  it  seems  so  small  a  business  in  comparison 
with  other  things  which,  it  seems  to  me,  I  might 
do.  Question  here :  ;  What  is  the  province  of 
music  in  the  economy  of  the  world  ? ' ' 

But  the  really  practical  plan  that  formed  it 
self  in  Lanier's  mind  was  that  of  study  in  a 
German  university,  as  preliminary  to  a  profes 
sorship  in  an  American  college,  which  might  in 
turn  give  opportunity  for  creative  work.  Young 
Southerners  from  the  University  of  Virginia  — 
such  as  Basil  Gildersleeve  and  Thomas  R.  Price 
—  had  already  begun  their  pilgrimages  to  the 
German  universities.  The  situation  in  Lanier's 
case  is  an  exact  parallel  to  that  of  Longfellow 
at  Bowdoin  College,  and  one  cannot  but  wonder 
what  would  have  been  Lanier's  future  if  circum 
stances  had  allowed  him  to  follow  out  the  career 
here  indicated.  The  best  account  given  of  him 
at  this  time  is  that  of  a  young  Northerner  who 
was  teaching  in  an  academy  at  Midway :  — 

"  It  was  during  the  four  months  immediately 
preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  war  that  a  kind 
Fate  brought  me  into  contact  and  companion- 


40  SIDNEY    LANIER 

ship  with  Sidney  Lanier.  We  occupied  adjoining 
rooms  at  Ike  Sherman's  boarding-house  and  ate 
at  the  same  table.  Myself  a  young  fellow  just 
out  of  a  Northern  college,  boasting  the  same  num 
ber  of  years,  conducting  a  boys'  academy  in  the 
shadow  of  Oglethorpe,  there  was  between  us  a 
bond  of  sympathy  which  led  to  a  friendship  inter 
rupted  only  by  the  Civil  War  and  broken  only 
by  his  untimely  death.  Many  a  stroll  and  talk 
we  had  together  among  the  moaning  pines,  be 
guiled  by  the  song  of  the  mocking-bird.  To 
gether  we  called  on  the  young  ladies  of  Midway, 
—  as  this  little  college  community  was  known,  — 
together  joined  in  serenades,  in  which  his  flute  or 
guitar  had  the  place  of  honor,  played  chess  to 
gether,  and  together  dreamed  day-dreams  which 
were  never  to  be  realized.  Contemporary  testi 
mony  to  my  joy  in  his  companionship  is  borne  in 
frequent  references  thereto  in  my  private  corre 
spondence  of  those  days.  '  Several  students,'  says 
a  New  Year's  letter  to  a  Northern  friend,  '  room 
in  the  hotel,  as  well  as  a  young  and  very  intel 
lectual  tutor,  right  back  of  me,  which  makes  it 
very  pleasant.'  In  a  later  letter  :  '  The  tutor  is 
a  brick.  I  am  much  pleased  with  him  and  antici 
pate  much  pleasure  in  his  company.'  As  to  his 
plans  for  the  future :  4  The  tutor  —  Lanier  — 
is  studying  for  a  professorship ;  is  going  to  re 
main  here  about  two  years,  then  go  to  Heidel- 


COLLEGE   DAYS  41 

berg,  Germany,  remain  about  two  years,  come 
back,  and  take  a  professorship  somewhere.'  It 
is  needless  to  add  that  the  destroying  angel  of 
war  wrecked  ruthlessly  all  these  beautiful  ambi 
tions. 

"  Lanier's  passion  for  music  asserted  itself  at 
every  opportunity.  His  flute  and  guitar  furnished 
recreation  for  himself  and  pleasant  entertainment 
for  the  friends  dropping  in  upon  him.  As  a 
master  of  the  flute  he  was  said  to  be,  even  at 
eighteen,  without  an  equal  in  Georgia.  '  Tutor 
Lanier,'  I  find  myself  recording  at  the  time,  4  is 
the  finest  flute-player  you  or  I  ever  saw.  It  is 
perfectly  splendid  —  his  playing.  He  is  far  famed 
for  it.  His  flute  cost  fifty  dollars,  and  he  runs 
the  notes  as  easily  as  any  one  on  the  piano.  De 
scription  is  inadequate.'  " 1 

Before  he  was  twenty  years  old,  then,  the 
master  passions  of  Lanier's  soul  —  scholarship, 
music,  and  to  a  less  degree  poetry  —  had  as 
serted  themselves.  He  had  a  right  to  look  for 
ward  to  a  brilliant  future. 

1  "  Recollections  and  Letters  of  Sidney  Lanier,"  by  Milton 
H.  Northrup.  Lippincoti 's  Magazine,  March,  1905. 


CHAPTER  III 

A   CONFEDERATE    SOLDIER 

FROM  his  dreams  of  music  and  poetry  and  from 
the  ideal  he  had  formed  of  study  at  Heidel 
berg,  Lanier  was  awakened  by  the  guns  of  Fort 
Sumter  and  by  the  agitation  everywhere  in 
Georgia.  At  Milledgeville  he  heard  some  of 
the  great  speeches  made  for  and  against  seces 
sion,  for,  from  November  to  January,  the  con 
flict  throughout  the  State  and  especially  in  the 
capital  was  a  severe  one.  He  himself,  like  his 
father,  hoped  that  the  Union  might  be  preserved, 
but  the  forces  of  discord  could  not  be  stayed. 
The  people  of  Macon,  on  November  8,  1860, 
passed  a  declaration  of  independence,  setting 
forth  their  grievances  against  the  North.  When 
secession  was  declared  in  Charleston  on  Decem 
ber  1,  a  hundred  guns  were  fired  amidst  the 
ringing  of  bells  and  the  shouts  of  the  people.  At 
night  there  was  a  procession  of  fifteen  hundred 
people  with  banners  and  transparencies.1  When 
on  January  16  the  Georgia  convention  voted 
to  secede  from  the  Union,  Milledgeville  was  in 

1  Butler's  History  of  Macon. 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER          43 

"  rapturous  commotion."  "  Tears  of  joy  fell  from 
many  eyes,  and  words  of  congratulation  were 
uttered  by  every  tongue.  The  artillery  from  the 
capitol  square  thundered  forth  the  glad  tidings, 
and  the  bells  of  the  city  pealed  forth  the  joyous 
welcome  to  the  new-born  Republic." 

Lanier  afterwards,  in  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  described 
the  war  fever  as  it  swept  over  the  South.  "  An 
afflatus  of  war  was  breathed  upon  us.  Like  a 
great  wind  it  drew  on,  and  blew  upon  men, 
women,  and  children.  Its  sound  mingled  with 
the  serenity  of  the  church  organs  and  arose  with 
the  earnest  words  of  preachers  praying  for  guid 
ance  in  the  matter.  It  sighed  in  the  half -breathed 
words  of  sweethearts,  conditioning  impatient  lov 
ers  with  war  services.  It  thundered  splendidly 
in  the  impassioned  appeals  of  orators  to  the 
people.  It  whistled  through  the  streets,  it  stole 
into  the  firesides,  it  clinked  glasses  in  bar-rooms, 
it  lifted  the  gray  hairs  of  our  wise  men  in  conven 
tions,  it  thrilled  through  the  lectures  in  college 
halls,  it  rustled  the  thumbed  book  leaves  of  the 
schoolrooms.  This  wind  blew  upon  all  vanes 
of  all  the  churches  of  the  country  and  turned 
them  one  way, — toward  war.  It  blew,  and  shook 
out  as  if  by  magic  a  flag  whose  device  was  un 
known  to  soldier  or  sailor  before,  but  whose 
every  flap  and  flutter  made  the  blood  bound  in 
our  veins.  ...  It  arrayed  the  sanctity  of  a 


44  SIDNEY   LANIER 

righteous  cause  in  the  brilliant  trappings  of  mil 
itary  display.  ...  It  offered  tests  to  all  alle 
giances  and  loyalties,  —  of  church,  of  state;  of 
private  loves,  of  public  devotion;  of  personal 
consanguinity,  of  social  ties."  1 

It  does  not  fall  within  the  province  of  this 
book  to  discuss  the  issues  that  led  to  the  Civil 
War,  —  the  questions  of  secession  and  slavery. 
In  1861  they  had  ceased  to  be  debated  in  the 
halls  of  Congress ;  all  the  Southern  people  were 
being  merged  into  a  unit.  Ardent  opponents  of 
secession,  like  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  threw  in 
their  lot  with  the  new  Confederacy ;  States  like 
Virginia,  which  hesitated  to  disrupt  a  Union 
with  which  they  had  had  so  much  to  do,  were  as 
enthusiastic  as  the  more  ardent  Southern  States ; 
old  men  vied  with  young  men  in  their  military 
ardor.  Scotch-Irish  opponents  of  slavery  marched 
side  by  side  with  the  Cavaliers,  to  whom  slavery 
was  the  very  corner-stone  of  a  feudal  aristocracy. 
The  fact  is,  the  whole  South  was  animated  by  a 
passion  for  war.  To  young  men  like  Lanier  the 
Southern  cause  was  one  of  liberty,  of  resistance 
to  despotism  and  fanaticism,  of  the  protection  of 
homes.  He  who  would  understand  their  point  of 
view  must  read  such  war  lyrics  as  "  Maryland, 
My  Maryland"  and  Timrod's  "  Ethnogenesis," 
or  enter  sympathetically  into  the  lives  of  that 
youthful  band  of  Confederate  soldiers  all  of 
1  Tiger  Lilies,  p.  119. 


A  CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  45 

whom  were  afterwards  to  become  distinguished 
in  the  field  of  letters,  —  Timrod,  Hayne,  Cable, 
Maurice  Thompson,  and  Lanier. 

It  was  not  given  to  many  men  on  either  side 
to  divine  the  true  issues  of  the  war.  Lanier  af 
terwards  rejoiced  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery, 
and  knew  that  it  was  the  belief  in  the  soundness 
and  greatness  of  the  American  Union  among 
the  millions  of  the  North  and  of  the  great 
Northwest  which  really  conquered  the  South. 
"As  soon  as  we  invaded  the  North,"  he  said, 
"  and  arrayed  this  sentiment  against  us,  our 
swift  destruction  followed."  In  a  note-book  of 
1867  he  pointed  out  with  touches  of  humor  the 
folly  of  many  of  the  ideas  formerly  held  by  him 
self  and  other  Southerners.  He  is  writing  an 
essay  on  the  Devil's  Bombs,  "  some  half-dozen  of 
which  were  exploded  between  the  years  1861  and 
1865  over  the  Southern  portion  of  North  Amer 
ica  with  widespread  and  somewhat  sad  results : 
namely,  a  million  of  men  slain  and  maimed ;  a 
million  of  widows  and  orphans  created ;  several 
billions  of  money  destroyed;  several  hundred 
thousand  of  ignorant  schoolboys  who  could  not 
study  on  account  of  the  noise  made  by  the 
shells ;  and  a  large  miscellaneous  mass  of  poverty, 
starvation,  recklessness,  and  ruin  precipitated  so 
suddenly  upon  the  country  that  many  were  buried 
beneath  it  beyond  hope  of  being  extricated." 


46  SIDNEY  LANIER 

This  universal  tragedy  he  attributes  in  part  to 
the  conceit  of  the  Southern  people.  He  himself 
became  "  convinced  of  his  ability  to  whip  at  least 
five  Yankees.  The  author  does  not  know  now 
and  did  not  then,  by  what  course  of  reasoning  he 
arrived  at  this  said  conviction ;  in  the  best  of  the 
author's  judgment  he  did  not  reason  it  out  at  all, 
rather  absorbed  it,  from  the  press  of  surround 
ing  similar  convictions.  The  author,  however, 
was  also  confident,  not  only  that  he  personally 
could  whip  five  Yankees,  but  any  Southern  boy 
could  do  it.  The  whole  South  was  satisfied  it 
could  whip  five  Norths.  The  newspapers  said 
we  could  do  it ;  the  preachers  pronounced  ana 
themas  against  the  man  that  did  n't  believe  we 
could  do  it ;  our  old  men  said  at  the  street  cor 
ners,  if  they  were  young  they  could  do  it,  and  by 
the  Eternal,  they  believed  they  could  do  it  any 
how  (whereat  great  applause  and  '  Hurrah  for 
ole  Harris ! ')  ;  the  young  men  said  they  'd  be 
blanked  if  they  could  n't  do  it,  and  the  young 
ladies  said  they  would  n't  marry  a  man  who 
could  n't  do  it.  This  arrogant  perpetual  invita 
tion  to  draw  and  come  on,  this  idea  which  pos 
sessed  the  whole  section,  which  originated  no  one 
knows  when,  grew  no  one  knows  how,  was  a 
devil's  own  bombshell,  the  fuse  of  which  spar 
kled  when  Mr.  Brooks  struck  Mr.  Sumner  upon 
the  head  with  a  cane. 


A  CONFEDERATE  SOLDIER          47 

"  Of  course  we  laugh  at  it  now, —  laugh  in  the 
hope  that  our  neighbors  will  attribute  the  red 
ness  of  our  cheeks  to  that  and  not  to  our  shame. 
.  .  .  The  conceit  of  an  individual  is  ridiculous 
because  it  is  powerless.  .  .  .  The  conceit  of  a 
whole  people  is  terrible,  it  is  a  devil's  bomb 
shell,  surcharged  with  death,  plethoric  with  all 
foul  despairs  and  disasters." 

So  Lanier  spoke  in  the  sober  maturity  of  his 
manhood  of  the  great  tragedy  through  which  he 
with  his  section  passed.  But  during  the  war 
there  was  but  one  idea  in  his  mind,  and  that  was 
that  he  might  take  part  in  the  establishment  of 
a  Confederacy.  He  dreamed  with  his  people  of  a 
nation  that  might  be  the  embodiment  of  all  that 
was  fine  in  government  and  in  society,  that  the 
"  new  Confederacy  was  to  enter  upon  an  era  of 
prosperity  such  as  no  other  nation,  ancient  or 
modern,  had  ever  enjoyed,  and  that  the  city  of 
Macon,  his  birthplace  and  home,  was  to  become 
a  great  art  centre."  In  this  hope,  soon  after 
finishing  the  year's  work  at  Oglethorpe,1  he  vol 
unteered  for  service  and  went  to  Virginia  to  join 
the  Macon  Volunteers,  who  had  left  Georgia  early 
in  April  —  the  first  company  that  went  out  of  the 

1  The  faculty  and  students  almost,  to  a  man  enlisted  in  the 
army ;  and  the  college  buildings  were  afterwards  used  for  bar 
racks  and  hospitals.  President  Talmage  lost  his  mind  by  rea 
son  of  the  conflict  between  his  affection  for  his  native  and  for 
his  adopted  section. 


48  SIDNEY  LANIER 

State  to  Virginia.  It  was  an  old  company  that 
had  won  distinction  in  the  Mexican  War,  and  was 
the  special  pride  of  the  city  of  Macon.  The 
company  was  stationed  for  several  months  near 
Norfolk,  where  Lanier  experienced  some  of  the 
joys  of  city  life  in  those  early  days  when  war  was 
largely  a  picnic  —  a  holiday  time  it  was  —  "  the 
gay  days  of  mandolin  and  guitar  and  moonlight 
sails  on  the  James  River." 

In  the  main,  however,  they  played  "Marsh- 
Divers  and  Meadow-Crakes,"  their  principal 
duties  being  to  picket  the  beach,  and  their  "  plea 
sures  and  sweet  rewards-of-toil  consisting  in  agues 
which  played  dice  with  our  bones,  and  blue- 
mass  pills  that  played  the  deuce  with  our  livers." l 
The  company  was  sent  in  1862  to  Wilmington,  N. 
C.,  where  they  experienced  a  pleasant  change  in 
the  style  of  fever,  "  indulging  for  two  or  three 
months,"  continues  Lanier,  "  in  what  are  called 
the  '  dry  shakes  of  the  sand  hills,'  a  sort  of  bril 
liant,  tremolo  movement,  brilliantly  executed 
upon  'that  pan-pipe,  man,'  by  an  invisible  but  very 
powerful  performer."  From  here,  where  they 
were  engaged  in  building  Fort  Fisher,  they  were 
called  to  Drewry's  Bluff ;  and  from  there  to  the 
Chickahominy,  participating  in  the  seven  days' 

1  The  account  of  Lanier's  war  experiences  is  based  on  the 
poet's  letters  to  Northrup,  the  reminiscences  of  Clifford  Lanier, 
Lanier's  unpublished  letters  to  his  father,  Tiger  Lilies,  and 
the  Official  Records  of  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  49 

fighting  around  Richmond.  Just  before  the  battle 
of  Malvern  Hill  they  marched  all  night  through 
drenching  rain,  over  torn  and  swampy  roads. 
These  were  the  only  important  battles  in  which 
Lanier  took  part.  Soon  afterwards  he  was  in  a 
little  gunboat  fight  or  two  on  the  south  bank  of 
the  James  River.  On  August  26  they  were  sent 
to  Petersburg  to  rest.  While  there  he  enjoyed 
the  use  of  the  city  library.  He  and  his  brother 
and  two  friends  were  transferred  to  the  signal 
corps,  which  was  considered  at  that  time  the  most 
efficient  in  the  Southern  army,  and,  becoming 
soon  proficient  in  the  system,  attracted  the  atten 
tion  of  the  commanding  officer,  who  formed  them 
into  a  mounted  field  squad  and  attached  them 
to  the  staff  of  Major-General  French.  "  Often 
Lanier  and  a  friend,"  says  the  latter  officer, 
"  would  come  to  my  quarters  and  pass  the  even 
ings  with  us,  where  the  4  alarums  of  war '  were  lost 
in  the  soft  notes  of  their  flutes,  for  Lanier  was 
an  excellent  musician."  l  Lanier  tells  in  a  letter 
written  to  his  father  at  that  time  of  four  Georgia 
privates  with  one  general,  six  captains,  and  one 
lieutenant,  serenading  the  city. 

One  of  the  most  precious  memories  of  Lanier's 

war  career  was  that  of  General  Lee  attending 

religious  services  in  Petersburg.    The  height  of 

every  Confederate  soldier's  ambition  was  to  get  a 

1  A  History  of  Two  Wars,  by  Samuel  G.  French. 


50  SIDNEY  LANIER 

glimpse  of  the  beloved  general,  who  was  the  idol 
of  his  soldiers.  Lanier  reverenced  him  as  one  of 
the  greatest  of  men.  In  later  years  he  gave  his 
ideal  of  what  a  great  musician  ought  to  be.  "A 
great  artist,"  he  said,  "  should  have  the  sensibil 
ity  and  expressive  genius  of  Schumann,  the  calm 
grandeur  of  Lee,  and  the  human  breadth  of 
Shakespeare,  all  in  one."  In  his  "  Confederate 
Memorial  Address  "  he  speaks  of  Lee  as  "  stately 
in  victory,  stately  in  defeat ;  stately  among  the 
cannon,  stately  among  the  books  ;  stately  in  soli 
tude,  stately  in  society ;  stately  in  form,  in  soul, 
in  character,  and  in  action."  Fortunately  he 
had  the  chance  to  see  him  under  specially  in 
teresting  circumstances.  He  afterwards  related 
the  incident  to  the  Confederate  veterans  in 
Macon :  "  The  last  time  that  I  saw  with  mor 
tal  eyes  —  for,  with  spiritual  eyes,  many,  many 
times  have  I  contemplated  him  since  —  the  scene 
was  so  beautiful,  the  surroundings  were  so  rare, 
nay,  time  and  circumstance  did  so  fitly  frame 
him,  as  it  were,  that  I  think  the  picture  should 
not  be  lost.  ...  It  was  at  fateful  Petersburg, 
on  one  glorious  Sunday  morning,  whilst  the 
armies  of  Grant  and  Butler  were  investing  our 
last  stronghold  there.  It  had  been  announced, 
to  those  who  happened  to  be  stationed  in  the 
neighborhood  of  General  Lee's  headquarters, 
that  religious  services  would  be  conducted  on 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER          51 

that  morning  by  Major-General  Pendleton.  At 
the  appointed  time  I  strolled  over  to  Dunn's 
Hill,  where  General  Lee's  tent  was  pitched, 
and  found  General  Pendleton  ensconced  under  a 
magnificent  tree,  and  a  small  party  of  soldiers, 
with  a  few  ladies  from  the  dwelling  near  by,  col 
lected  about  him.  In  a  few  moments,  General 
Lee  appeared  with  his  camp  chair,  and  sat  down. 
The  services  began.  That  terrible  battery,  Num 
ber  Five,  was  firing,  very  slowly,  each  report  of  the 
great  guns  making  the  otherwise  profound  silence 
still  more  profound.  I  sat  down  on  the  grass  and 
gazed,  with  such  reverence  as  I  had  never  given 
to  mortal  man  before,  upon  the  grand  face  of 
General  Lee.  He  had  been  greatly  fatigued  by 
loss  of  sleep. 

"  As  the  sermon  progressed,  and  the  immortal 
words  of  Christian  doctrine  came  to  our  hearts 
and  comforted  us,  sweet  influences  born  of  the 
liberal  sunlight  which  lay  warm  upon  the  grass, 
of  the  moving  leaves  and  trembling  flowers, 
seemed  to  steal  over  the  General's  soul.  Presently 
his  eyelids  gradually  closed,  and  he  fell  gently 
asleep.  Not  a  muscle  of  him  stirred,  not  a  nerve 
of  his  grand  countenance  twitched ;  there  was  no 
drooping  of  the  head,  nor  bowing  of  the  figure. 
...  As  he  slumbered  so,  sitting  erect,  with  arms 
folded  upon  his  chest,  in  an  attitude  of  majestic 
repose,  such  as  I  never  saw  assumed  by  mortal 


52  SIDNEY   LANIER 

man  before ;  as  the  large  and  comfortable  word 
fell  from  the  preacher's  lips ;  as  the  lazy  cannon 
of  the  enemy  anon  hurled  a  screaming  shell  to 
within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  where  we  sat,  as 
finally  a  bird  flew  into  a  tree  overhead  and  sat 
and  piped  small  blissful  notes  in  unearthly  con 
trast  with  the  roar  of  the  war  engines ;  it  seemed 
to  me  as  if  the  present  earth  floated  off  through 
the  sunlight,  and  the  antique  earth  returned  out 
of  the  past,  and  some  majestic  god  sat  on  a  hill, 
sculptured  in  stone,  presiding  over  a  terrible  yet 
sublime  contest  of  human  passion." 

A  pleasant  interlude  in  Lanier's  soldier  life 
was  a  two  weeks'  visit  to  Macon  in  the  spring  of 
1863.  The  city  had  not  yet  felt  any  of  the  calam 
ities  of  war,  although  high  prices  prevailed.  Mrs. 
Clay,  wife  of  Senator  Clement  C.  Clay,  was  a 
visitor  in  the  city  at  that  time,  waiting  for  a  sum 
mons  to  join  her  husband  in  Richmond.  She 
writes,  in  recalling  those  days :  "  Spring  was  in 
its  precious  beauty.  Gardens  glowed  with  bril 
liant  blossoms.  Thousands  of  fragrant  odors 
mingled  in  the  air,  the  voices  of  myriad  birds 
sang  about  the  foliaged  avenues."  l  It  was  then 
that  Lanier  met  Miss  Mary  Day,  at  the  home 
of  their  friend,  Miss  Lamar.  Her  father  was  a 
prominent  business  man  in  Macon.  She  had  lived 
for  the  first  few  years  of  her  life  in  Macon,  but 
1  A  Belle  of  the  Fifties,  p.  194. 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  53 

had  been  since  1851  studying  music  in  New  York, 
and  living  with  cultivated  people  at  Saratoga 
and  West  Point.  In  an  atmosphere  of  romance, 
music,  and  love  Lanier  spent  his  vacation. 

On  their  return  to  the  Virginia  battlefields  the 
two  brothers  were  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Clay  and 
her  sister-in-law.  Mrs.  Clay  had  been  a  popular 
belle  in  Washington  in  the  fifties,  and  was  well 
acquainted  with  leading  men  and  women  through 
out  the  country.  She  had  heard  and  met  in  social 
circles  Charlotte  Cushman,  Jenny  Lind,  Thack 
eray,  Lord  Napier,  and  other  notabilities.  Lanier, 
eager  always  to  hear  of  the  larger  world  outside 
of  his  own  limited  life,  was  much  attracted  by 
her  reminiscences  of  well-known  men  and  women. 
Returning  to  Suffolk,  Va.,  Clifford  Lanier  wrote 
to  her :  "  What  a  transition  is  this  —  from  the 
spring  and  peace  of  Macon  to  this  muddy  and 
war-distracted  country !  Going  to  sleep  in  the 
moonlight  and  soft  air  of  Italy,  I  seem  to  have 
waked  embedded  in  Lapland  snow."  Sidney 
wrote :  "  Have  you  ever  wandered,  in  an  all 
night's  dream,  through  exquisite  flowery  mosses, 
through  labyrinthine  grottoes,  i  full  of  all  spark 
ling  and  sparry  loveliness,'  over  mountains  of 
unknown  height,  by  abysses  of  unfathomable 
depth,  all  beneath  skies  of  an  infinite  brightness 
caused  by  no  sun  ;  strangest  of  all,  —  wandered 
about  in  wonder,  as  if  you  had  lived  an  eternity 


54  SIDNEY   LANIER 

in  the  familiar  contemplation  of  such  things  ?  If 
you  have  dreamed,  thought,  and  felt  so,  you  can 
realize  the  imbecile  stare  with  which  I  gaze  on 
all  of  this  life  which  goes  on  around  me  here. 
Macon  was  my  two  weeks'  dream."  1 

During  1863  and  a  large  part  of  1864  the 
two  brothers  served  as  scouts  in  Milligan's  Corps 
along  the  James  River.  The  duties  were  unusu 
ally  dangerous  and  onerous,  from  the  fact  that 
their  movements  had  to  be  concealed,  and  that 
they  were  in  constant  danger  of  being  captured. 
In  this  work  of  hard  riding  Lanier  displayed 
a  cool  and  collected  courage;  he  was  untiring 
in  his  energy,  prudent  and  cautious.  Notwith 
standing  the  dangers  and  hardships,  he  looked 
upon  the  period  of  life  at  Fort  Boykin  on  Bur- 
well's  Bay  —  their  headquarters  —  as  "  the  most 
delicious  period  of  his  life  in  many  respects." 
Writing  of  it  later  he  said :  "  Our  life  was  as 
full  of  romance  as  heart  could  desire.  We  had 
a  flute  and  a  guitar,  good  horses,  a  beautiful 
country,  splendid  residences  inhabited  by  friends 
who  loved  us,  and  plenty  of  hairbreadth  'scapes 
from  the  roving  bands  of  Federals  who  were 
continually  visiting  that  Debatable  Land.  .  .  . 
Cliff  and  I  never  cease  to  talk  of  the  beauti 
ful  women,  the  serenades,  the  moonlight  dashes 
on  the  beach  of  fair  Burwell's  Bay,  and  the 

1  A  Belle  of  the  Fifties,  p.  200. 


SIDNEY   LANIER  IN  1866 
From  a  "carte  de  visite"  photograph  owned  by  Milton  H.  Northrup 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  55 

spirited  brushes  of  our  little  force  with  the 
enemy."  l 

This  is  the  period  of  his  life  which  he  de 
scribes  in  the  second  part  of  "  Tiger  Lilies." 
His  brother  Clifford  also  made  it  the  basis  of 
his  novel,  "  Thorn-Fruit."  The  effect  produced 
by  the  young  poet  and  musician  on  the  people 
who  lived  in  the  stately  mansions  along  the 
James  River  has  been  told  by  one  who  knew  him 
well  at  this  time :  "  The  two  brothers  were  in 
separable  ;  slender,  gray-eyed  youths,  full  of  en 
thusiasm,  Clifford  grave  and  quiet,  Sidney,  the 
elder,  playful  with  a  dainty  mirthfulness.  .  .  . 
How  often  did  we  sit  on  the  moonlight  nights 
enthralled  by  the  entranced  melodies  of  his 
flute !  Always  the  longing  for  the  very  highest 
pervaded  his  life,  and  child  though  I  was,  in 
listening  to  him  as  he  paced  the  long  galleries  of 
my  old  home,  or  as  we  rode  in  the  sweet  green 
wood,  I  felt  even  then  that  we  sat  4  in  the  aurora 
of  a  sunrise  which  was  to  put  out  all  the  stars.'  "  2 

This  period  of  his  army  life  is  important  also 
from  the  fact  that  here  at  Fort  Boykin  he  defi 
nitely  began  to  contemplate  a  literary  life  as  his 
probable  vocation.  He  was  studying  hard,  read 
ing  English  poetry,  and  writing  to  his  father  to 
"  seize  at  any  price "  editions  of  the  German 

1  Letter  to  Northrup,  June  11,  1866. 

2  Southern  Bivouac,  May,  1887. 


56  SIDNEY   LANIER 

poets,  Uhland,  Lessing,  Schelling,  and  Tieck. 
Thus  at  a  time  when  other  Southerners  were,  as 
Professor  Gildersleeve  has  said,  getting  out  their 
classics  to  reread  them,  Lanier  was  voyaging 
into  strange  fields  of  thought  alone.  Once,  when 
the  little  camp  was  captured,  he  lost  several  of 
his  choicest  treasures,  —  a  volume  containing 
the  poems  of  Coleridge,  Shelley,  and  Keats,  a 
German  glossary,  Heine's  poems,  and  "Aurora 
Leigh."  In  a  letter  to  his  father,  January  18, 
1864,  he  says :  "  Gradually  I  find  that  my  whole 
soul  is  merging  itself  into  this  business  of  writ 
ing,  and  especially  of  writing  poetry.  I  am  going 
to  try  it ;  and  am  going  to  test,  in  the  most  rigid 
way  I  know,  the  awful  question  whether  it  is 
my  vocation."  He  sends  his  father  a  number  of 
poems,  that  they  may  be  criticised.  He  has  a 
sense  of  his  own  deficiencies  as  a  writer,  —  defi 
ciencies  which  he  never  fully  overcame,  —  for  he 
writes :  "  I  have  frequently  noticed  in  myself  a 
tendency  to  a  diffuse  style  ;  a  disposition  to  push 
my  metaphors  too  far,  employing  a  multitude  of 
words  to  heighten  the  patness  of  the  image,  and 
so  making  of  it  a  conceit  rather  than  a  meta 
phor,  a  fault  copiously  illustrated  in  the  poetry 
of  Cowley,  Waller,  Donne,  and  others  of  that 
ilk." 

The  tendency  is  seen  in  a  poem  written  at 
Boykin's  Bluff  on,  perhaps,  his  twenty-first  birth- 


A   CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  57 

day.    Notable  also  is  the  sense  of  the  dawn  of 
manhood :  — 

So  Boyhood  sets:  comes  Youth, 
A  painful  night  of  mists  and  dreams, 
That  broods  till  Love's  exquisite  truth, 
The  star  of  a  morn-clear  manhood,  beams. 

In  this  dawn  of  his  manhood  —  not  yet  morn- 
clear,  however,  —  he  began  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  writ 
ing  those  parts  having  to  do  with  his  experience 
in  the  mountains,  some  passages  of  which  have 
already  been  quoted. 

But  Lanier's  literary  career  was  not  to  be 
begun  as  soon  as  he  hoped.  He  was,  in  August, 
1864,  transferred  to  Wilmington,  N.  C.,  where  he 
became  a  signal  officer  on  the  blockade-runners. 
Wilmington  was  the  port  which,  late  in  the 
war,  was  the  scene  of  the  most  brilliant  successes 
of  these  swift  vessels  and  the  most  strenuous 
efforts  of  the  blockaders.  "  Long  after  every 
other  port  was  closed,  desperate,  but  wary  sea 
pigeons  would  evade  the  big  and  surly  watchers 
on  the  coast  .  .  .  and  ho !  for  the  open  sea."  This 
was  a  service  of  keen  excitement  and  constant 
danger,  demanding  a  clear  head  and  iron  nerves. 
In  the  latter  part  of  1864  it  became  more  and 
more  difficult  for  the  blockade-runners  to  make 
their  way  to  Bermuda.  On  November  2,  a  stormy 
night,  Lanier  was  a  signal  officer  on  the  Lucy, 
which  made  its  way  out  of  the  harbor,  but  four- 


58  SIDNEY   LANIER 

teen  hours  later  was  captured  in  the  Gulf  Stream 
by  the  Federal  cruiser  Santiago-de-Cuba.  He  was 
taken  to  Point  Lookout  prison,  where  he  spent 
four  months  of  dreary  and  distressing  life.  To 
this  prison  life  Lanier  always  attributed  his 
breakdown  in  health.  In  "  Tiger  Lilies  "  he  af 
terwards  attempted  to  give  a  description  of  the 
prison  and  the  life  led  by  prisoners,  but  turned 
with  disgust  from  the  harrowing  memories.  The 
few  pages  he  did  write  serve  as  a  counterpart  to 
Walt  Whitman's  strictures  on  Southern  prisons 
in  his  "  Specimen  Days  in  America." 

And  yet,  under  these  loathsome  conditions  he 
read  German  poetry,  translating  Heine's  "  The 
Palm  and  the  Pine"  and  Herder's  "Spring 
Greeting."  Here,  too,  he  found  comfort  for 
himself  and  his  companions  in  the  flute  which 
he  had  carried  with  him  during  the  entire  war. 
One  of  his  comrades  gives  the  following  ac 
count  of  Lanier's  playing :  "  Late  one  evening 
I  heard  from  our  tent  the  clear  sweet  notes  of 
a  flute  in  the  distance,  and  I  was  told  that  the 
player  was  a  young  man  from  Georgia  who  had 
just  come  among  us.  I  forthwith  hastened  to 
find  him  out,  and  from  that  hour  the  flute  of 
Sidney  Lanier  was  our  daily  delight.  It  was  an 
angel  imprisoned  with  us  to  cheer  and  console 
us.  Well  I  remember  his  improvisations,  and 
how  the  young  artist  stood  there  in  the  twilight. 


A  CONFEDERATE   SOLDIER  59 

(It  was  his  custom  to  stand  while  he  played.) 
Many  a  stern  eye  moistened  to  hear  him,  many 
a  homesick  heart  for  a  time  forgot  its  captivity. 
The  night  sky,  clear  as  a  dewdrop  above  us, 
the  waters  of  the  Chesapeake  far  to  the  east,  the 
long  gray  beach  and  the  distant  pines,  seemed 
all  to  have  found  an  interpreter  in  him. 

"  In  all  those  dreary  months  of  imprisonment, 
under  the  keenest  privations  of  life,  exposed  to 
the  daily  manifestations  of  want  and  depravity, 
sickness  and  death,  his  was  the  clear-hearted, 
hopeful  voice  that  sang  what  he  uttered  in  after 
years." 

The  purity  of  Lanier's  soul  was  never  better 
attested  than  in  a  letter  written  by  a  fellow- 
prisoner,  Mr.  John  B.  Tabb,  to  Charles  Day 
Lanier,  the  oldest  son  of  the  poet,  trying  to  im 
press  upon  his  mind  the  character  of  his  father 
as  exhibited  in  this  prison  life  at  Point  Lookout : 

"  To  realize  what  our  surroundings  were,  one 
must  have  lived  in  a  prison  camp.  There  was  no 
room  for  pretense  or  disguise.  Men  appeared 
what  they  really  were,  noble  or  low-minded,  pure 
or  depraved ;  and  there  did  one  trait  of  your 
father's  character  single  him  out.  In  all  our 
intercourse  I  can  remember  no  conversation  or 
word  of  his  that  an  angel  might  not  have  uttered 
or  listened  to.  Set  this  down  in  your  memory. 
...  It  will  throw  light  upon  other  points,  and 


62  SIDNEY  LANIER 

playing.  As  he  played  the  first  few  notes,  you 
should  have  heard  the  yell  of  joy  that  came  up 
from  the  shivering  wretches  down  below,  who 
knew  that  their  comrade  was  alive.  And  there 
we  sat  entranced  about  him,  the  colonel  and 
his  wife,  Lilla  and  I,  weeping  at  the  tender  music, 
as  the  tones  of  new  warmth  and  color  and  hope 
came  like  liquid  melody  from  his  magic  flute."  l 

Thus  closes  his  war  period.  His  name  does 
not  appear  in  any  of  the  official  records,  but  no 
private  soldier  had  a  more  varied  experience.2 
One  scarcely  knows  which  to  admire  most,  — 
the  soldier,  brave  and  knightly,  the  poet,  pre 
paring  his  wings  for  a  flight,  or  the  musician, 
inspiriting  his  fellow-soldiers  in  camp  and  in 
prison. 

1  Southern  Writers,  p.  169. 

2  It  is  said  that  he  refused  promotion  several  times  in  order 
to  be  with  his  brother.    In  a  memorandum  on  the  photograph 
herewith  presented  he  refers  to  himself  as  "  captain  "  in  the 
late  Confederate  army.    I  have  been  unable  to  reconcile  these 
statements. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SEEKING  A  VOCATION 

LANIER  reached  Macon  March  15,  after  a  long 
and  painful  journey  through  the  Carolinas.  Im 
mediately  upon  his  arrival,  losing  the  stimulus 
which  had  kept  him  going  so  long,  he  fell  dan 
gerously  ill,  and  remained  so  for  nearly  two 
months.  Early  in  May,  just  as  he  was  conva 
lescing,  General  Wilson  captured  Macon,  and 
Jefferson  Davis  and  Clement  C.  Clay  were 
brought  to  the  Lanier  House,  whence  they  were 
to  start  on  their  way  as  prisoners  to  Fortress 
Monroe.  Clifford  Lanier  reached  home  May  19. 
He  had,  after  the  blockade  was  closed  at  Wil 
mington,  gone  to  Cuba.  From  there  he  sailed 
to  Galveston  and  walked  thence  to  Macon.  He 
arrived  just  in  time  to  see  his  mother,  who  a 
few  days  after  died  of  consumption.  She  had 
kept  herself  alive  for  months  by  "  a  strong  con 
viction,  which  she  expressed  again  and  again,  that 
God  would  bring  both  her  boys  to  her  before  she 
died."  Sidney  spent  the  summer  months  with  his 
father  and  his  sister,  ministering  to  them  in  their 
sorrow.  In  September  he  began  to  tutor  on  a 


64  SIDNEY   LANIER 

large  plantation  nine  miles  from  Macon.  With 
thirty  classes  a  day  and  failing  health,  he 
whose  brain  was  "  fairly  teeming  with  beautiful 
things  "  was  shut  up  to  the  horrible  monotony 
of  the  "  tare  and  tret  "  of  the  schoolroom.  He 
spent  the  winter  at  Point  Clear  on  Mobile  Bay, 
where  he  was  greatly  invigorated  by  the  sea 
breezes  and  the  air  of  the  pine  forests. 

After  these  months  of  sorrow  and  struggle  he 
settled  in  Montgomery,  Ala.,  as  clerk  in  the  Ex 
change  Hotel,  the  property  of  his  grandfather 
and  his  uncles.  His  first  feeling  as  he  faces  the 
new  conditions  which  he  is  trying  to  explain  to 
Northrup,  his  Northern  friend,  is  one  of  bewil 
derment,  —  the  immense  distance  between  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  the  war :  — 

"  So  wild  and  high  are  the  big  war- waves  dash 
ing  between  '61  and  '66,  as  between  two  shores, 
that,  looking  across  their  4  rude,  imperious  surge,' 
I  can  scarcely  discern  any  sight  or  sound  of 
those  old  peaceful  days  that  you  and  I  passed  on 
the  'sacred  soil'  of  M .  The  sweet,  half- 
pastoral  tones  that  should  come  from  out  that 
golden  time,  float  to  me  mixed  with  battle  cries 
and  groans.  It  was  our  glorious  spring :  but,  my 
God,  the  flowers  of  it  send  up  sulphurous  odors, 
and  their  petals  are  dabbled  with  blood. 

"  These  things  being  so,  I  thank  you,  more  than 
I  can  well  express,  for  your  kind  letter.  It  comes 


SEEKING  A  VOCATION  65 

to  me,  like  a  welcome  sail,  from  that  old  world 
to  this  new  one,  through  the  war-storms.  It 
takes  away  the  sulphur  and  the  blood-flecks,  and 
drowns  out  the  harsh  noises  of  battle.  The  two 
margins  of  the  great  gulf  which  has  divided  you 
from  me  seem  approaching  each  other :  I  stretch 
out  my  hand  across  the  narrowing  fissure,  to  grasp 
yours  on  the  other  side.  And  I  wish,  with  all 
my  heart,  that  you  and  I  could  spend  this  inef 
fable  May  afternoon  under  that  old  oak  at  Whit- 
taker's  and  4  talk  it  all  over.'  "  l 

In  another  letter  (June  29,  1866)  he  en 
closes  a  photograph2  and  comments  on  the  life 
in  Montgomery :  — 

"  The  cadaverous  enclosed  is  supposed  to  re 
present  the  face  of  your  friend,  together  with  a 
small  portion  of  the  Confederate  gray  coat  in 
which  enwrapped  he  did  breast  the  big  wars. 

"  I  have  one  favor  to  entreat ;  and  that  is,  that 
you  will  hold  in  consideration  the  very  primitive 
state  of  the  photographic  art  in  this  section,  and 
believe  that  my  mouth  is  not  so  large,  by  some 
inches,  as  this  villainous  artist  portrays  it. 

"  I  despair  of  giving  you  any  idea  of  the  mor 
tal  stagnation  which  paralyzes  all  business  here. 
On  our  streets,  Monday  is  very  like  Sunday: 

1  This  and  the  following  letter  were  printed  in  Lippincotfs 
Magazine,  March,  1905.   A  few  changes  are  made  to  conform 
to  the  original  copies. 

2  See  p.  54. 


68  SIDNEY   LANIER 

was  still  the  land  they  loved  —  was  in  a  state  of 
despair.  Middle  Georgia  had  lost  through  Sher 
man's  march  to  the  sea  il.00,000,000.1  In  the 
wake  of  Sherman's  armies  Richard  Malcom  John 
ston  had  lost  his  estate  of  $50,000,  Maurice 
Thompson's  home  was  in  ashes,  and  Joel  Chan 
dler  Harris,  who  had  begun  life  on  the  old  Tur 
ner  plantation  under  such  favorable  auspices, 
was  forced  to  seek  an  occupation  in  New  Orleans. 
Only  those  who  lived  through  that  period  or 
who  have  imaginatively  reproduced  it,  can  real 
ize  the  truth  of  E.  L.  Godkin's  statement :  "  I 
doubt  much  if  any  community  in  the  modern 
world  was  ever  so  ruthlessly  brought  face  to  face 
with  what  is  sternest  and  hardest  in  human  life." 
It  was  not  simply  the  material  losses  of  the  war, 
—  these  have  often  been  commented  on  and  sta 
tistics  given,  —  it  was  the  loss  of  libraries  like 
those  of  Simms  and  Hayne,  the  burning  of  insti 
tutions  of  learning  like  the  University  of  Ala 
bama,  the  closing  of  colleges,  like  Lanier's  own 
alma  mater.  It  was  the  passing  away  of  a  civ 
ilization  which,  with  all  its  faults,  had  many  at 
tractive  qualities  —  a  loss  all  the  more  apparent 
at  a  time  when  a  more  democratic  civilization 
had  not  yet  taken  its  place.  The  South  was 

Wandering  between  two  worlds  —  one  dead, 
The  other  powerless  to  be  born. 

1  Rhodes's  History  of  the  United  States,  v,  22. 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  69 

Even  States  like  Georgia,  which  soon  showed  signs 
of  recuperation  and  rejuvenation,  suffered  with 
their  more  unfortunate  sisters,  South  Carolina 
and  Louisiana,  where  the  ravages  of  war  were 
terrific.  There  was  confusion  in  the  public  mind 
—  uncertainty  as  to  the  future.  The  memories 
of  these  days  are  suggested  here,  not  for  the  pur 
pose  of  awakening  in  any  mind  bitter  memories, 
but  that  some  idea  may  be  given  of  the  tremen 
dous  obstacles  that  confronted  a  young  man  like 
Lanier. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  under  these  circum 
stances  men  went  to  other  countries,  and  that  some 
of  those  who  did  not  go  cherished  the  project  of 
transporting  the  people  of  various  States  to  other 
lands,  where  the  spirit  of  the  civilization  that 
had  passed  away  might  be  preserved.1  Many 
men  whose  names  are  now  lost  passed  out  to  the 
States  of  the  West.  Business  men,  scholars,  and 
men  of  all  professions,  who  have  since  become 
famous  in  other  States,  were  as  complete  a  loss 
to  the  South  as  those  who  died  on  the  battle 
field.  And  when  to  all  these  are  added  the  men 
and  women  who  died  broken-hearted  at  the  losses 
of  war,  some  idea  may  be  conceived  of  the  dis 
advantages  under  which  the  South  began  her 
work. 

1  See  the  Life  and  Letters  of  R.  L.  Dabney,  for  a  plan  in 
which  many  Virginians  were  interested. 


70  SIDNEY   LANIER 

The  work  of  those  men  who  remained  in  the 
South  and  set  about  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  can 
not  be  too  highly  estimated,  —  a  work  made  all 
the  more  difficult  by  strong  men  who  resisted  the 
march  of  events,  and  who  refused  to  accept  the 
conditions  that  then  prevailed.  The  readjustment 
came  soon  to  more  men  than  some  have  thought. 
Lanier,  writing  in  1867,  before  the  pressure  of 
reconstruction  government  had  been  felt,  said, 
in  commenting  on  the  growing  lack  of  re 
straint  in  modern  political  life  :  "  At  the  close 
of  that  war,  three  armies  which  had  been  fight 
ing  on  the  Southern  side,  and  which  numbered 
probably  forty  thousand  men,  were  disbanded. 
These  men  had  for  four  years  been  subjected  to 
the  unfamiliar  and  galling  restrictions  of  military 
discipline,  and  to  the  most  maddening  privations. 
...  At  the  same  time  four  millions  of  slaves, 
without  provisions  and  without  prospect  of  labor 
in  a  land  where  employers  were  impoverished, 
were  liberated.  .  .  .  The  reign  of  law  at  this 
thrilling  time  was  at  an  end.  The  civil  powers 
of  the  States  were  dead ;  the  military  power  of 
the  conquerors  was  not  yet  organized  for  civil 
purposes.  The  railroad  and  the  telegraph,  those 
most  efficient  sheriffs  of  modern  times,  had  fallen 
in  the  shock  of  war.  All  possible  opportunities 
presented  themselves  to  each  man  who  chose  to 
injure  his  neighbor  with  impunity.  The  country 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  71 

was  sparsely  settled,  the  country  roads  were  in 
tricate,  the  forests  were  extensive  and  dense, 
the  hiding-places  were  numerous  and  secure,  the 
witnesses  were  few  and  ignorant.  Never  had 
crime  such  fair  weather  for  his  carnival.  Seri 
ous  apprehensions  had  long  been  entertained  by 
the  Southern  citizens  that  in  the  event  of  a  dis 
astrous  termination  of  the  war,  the  whole  army 
would  be  frenzied  to  convert  itself,  after  disin 
tegration,  into  forty  thousand  highwaymen.  .  .  . 
Moreover,  the  feuds  between  master  and  slave, 
alleged  by  the  Northern  parties  in  the  contest  to 
have  been  long  smouldering  in  the  South,  would 
seize  this  opportunity  to  flame  out  and  redress 
themselves.  Altogether,  regarding  humanity  from 
the  old  point  of  view,  there  appeared  to  many 
wise  citizens  a  clear  prospect  of  dwelling  in  [the] 
midst  of  a  furious  pandemonium  for  several 
years  after  an  unfavorable  termination  of  the 
war ;  but  was  this  prospect  realized  ?  Where 
were  the  highway  robberies,  the  bloody  ven 
geances,  the  arsons,  the  rapine,  the  murders, 
the  outrages,  the  insults  ?  They  were,  not  any 
where.  With  great  calmness  the  soldier  cast 
behind  him  the  memory  of  all  wrongs  and  hard 
ships  and  reckless  habits  of  the  war,  embraced 
his  wife,  patched  his  cabin-roof,  and  proceeded 
to  mingle  the  dust  of  recent  battles  yet  linger 
ing  on  his  feet  with  the  peaceful  clods  of  his 


72  SIDNEY   LANIER 

cornfield.  What  restrained  these  men  ?  Was  it 
fear  ?  The  word  cannot  be  spoken.  Was  he  who 
had  breasted  the  storms  of  Gettysburg  and 
Perryville  to  shrink  from  the  puny  arm  of  a 
civil  law  that  was  more  powerless  than  the 
shrunken  muscle  of  Justice  Shallow  ?  And  what 
could  the  negro  fear  when  his  belief  and  assurance 
were  that  a  conquering  nation  stood  ready  to  sup 
port  him  in  his  wildest  demands?  It  was  the 
spirit  of  the  time  that  brought  about  these  things. 
...  A  thousand  Atlantic  Cables  and  Pacific 
Railroads  would  not  have  contributed  cause  for 
so  earnest  self-gratulation  as  was  afforded  by 
this  one  feature  in  our  recent  political  convul 
sion."1 

Many  Southerners  were  ready,  like  Lee,  to 
forget  the  bitterness  and  prejudice  of  the  war — 
all  but  the  hallowed  memories.  Lanier,  at  the 
close  of  a  fanciful  passage  on  the  blood-red 
flower  of  war  which  blossomed  in  1861,  said :  — 

"  It  is  supposed  by  some  that  the  seed  of 
this  American  specimen  (now  dead)  yet  remain 
in  the  land ;  but  as  for  this  author  (who,  with 
many  friends,  suffered  from  the  unhealthy  odors 
of  the  plant),  he  could  find  it  in  his  heart 
to  wish  fervently  that  these  seed,  if  there  be 
verily  any,  might  perish  in  the  germ,  utterly 
out  of  sight  and  life  and  memory  and  out  of 
1  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  p.  29. 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  73 

the  remote  hope  of  resurrection,  forever  and  for 
ever,  no  matter  in  whose  granary  they  are  cher 
ished!"  i 

In  this  spirit  Lanier  began  his  work  in  Mont 
gomery,  Ala.  As  has  been  seen,  he  had  ex 
tended  the  hand  of  fellowship  to  his  Northern 
friend,  thus  laying  the  basis  for  the  spirit  of  re 
conciliation  afterwards  so  dominant  in  his  poetry. 
Uncongenial  as  was  his  work,  he  went  about  it 
with  a  new  sense  of  the  "  dignity  of  labor."  His 
aunt,  Mrs.  Watt,  who  had  in  the  more  prosper 
ous  times  before  the  war  traveled  much  in  the 
North,  and  had  graced  the  brilliant  scenes  of  the 
opening  of  the  Confederate  Congress  in  Monk 
gomery,  becoming  the  intimate  friend  of  Jeffer 
son  Davis  and  Stephens,  now  threw  around  her 
nephews  —  Clifford  was  also  working  in  the 
hotel  —  the  charm  of  the  olden  days.  They 
found  pleasure  in  social  life :  close  to  Mont 
gomery  lived  the  Cloptons  and  Ligons,  who  on 
their  plantations  enjoyed  the  gifts  of  "  Santa 
Claus  Cotton,"  just  after  the  war.  Lanier  writes 
to  his  sister,  September  26, 1866:  "I  have  just 
returned  from  Tuskegee,  where  I  spent  a  pleasant 
week.  .  .  .  They  feted  me  to  death,  nearly.  .  .  . 
Indeed,  they  were  all  so  good  and  so  kind  to  me, 
and  the  fair  cousins  were  so  beautiful,  that  I 
came  back  feeling  as  if  I  had  been  in  a  week's 

1  Tiger  Lilies,  p.  116. 


74  SIDNEY   LANIER 

dream  of  fairyland.'*  The  two  brothers,  eager 
for  more  intellectual  companionship,  organized  a 
literary  club,  for  the  meetings  of  which  Sidney 
prepared  his  first  literary  exercises  after  the 
war.  He  played  the  pipe-organ  in  the  Presby 
terian  church  in  Montgomery.  He  writes  to  a 
friend  about  some  one  who  was  in  a  state  of 
melancholy  :  "  She  is  right  to  cultivate  music, 
to  cling  to  it ;  it  is  the  only  reality  left  in  the 
world  for  her  and  many  like  her.  It  will  revolu 
tionize  the  world,  and  that  not  long  hence.  Let 
her  study  it  intensely,  give  herself  to  it,  enter 
the  very  innermost  temple  and  sanctuary  of  it. 
.  .  .  The  altar  steps  are  wide  enough  for  all  the 
world."  To  another  friend  he  writes  at  the 
same  time :  "  Study  Chopin  as  soon  as  you  be 
come  able  to  play  his  music  ;  and  get  his  life  by 
Liszt.  'T  is  the  most  enjoyable  book  you  could 
read." 

Most  of  the  leisure  time  of  the  brothers,  how 
ever,  was  spent  in  literary  work,  with  even 
more  ardor  than  while  they  had  plenty  of  time 
to  devote  to  it.  By  May  12  Clifford  had  fin 
ished  his  novel,  "  Thorn-Fruit,"  and  Sidney  was 
at  work  on  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  the  novel  begun 
at  Burwell's  Bay  in  1863  and  retouched  at  dif 
ferent  times  since  then.  They  were  planning, 
too,  a  volume  of  poems,  although  with  the  ex 
ception  of  their  father  they  had  not  been  able 


SEEKING  A   VOCATION  75 

"  to  find  a  single  individual  who  sympathized  in 
Tsuch  a  pursuit  enough  to  warrant  them  in  show 
ing  him  their  production,  —  so  scarce  is  general 
cultivation  here;  but,"  Sidney  adds,  "we  work 
on,  and  hope  to  become  at  least  recognized  as 
good  orderly  citizens  in  the  fair  realm  of  letters 
yet."  Indeed,  they  planned  to  go  North  in  the 
fall  "  with  bloody  literary  designs  on  some  hap 
less  publisher."  l 

In  order  to  find  out  what  was  going  on  in  the 
world  of  letters,  Lanier  subscribed  to  the  "Round 
Table,"  which  was  then  an  important  weekly 
paper  of  New  York  —  indeed,  it  was  more  like 
the  London  "  Spectator  "  than  any  paper  ever 
published  on  this  side  the  water —  a  journal,  said 
the  New  York  "  Times,"  which  "  has  the  genius 
and  learning  and  brilliancy  of  the  higher  order 
of  London  weeklies,  and  which  at  the  same  time 
has  the  spirit  and  the  instincts  of  America." 
Moncure  D.  Con  way  was  at  that  time  writing 
letters  of  much  interest  from  England  and  Jus 
tin  Winsor  from  Cambridge,  while  Howells,  Al- 
drich,  Stedman,  and  Stoddard  were  regular  con 
tributors.  The  reviews  of  books  were  thoroughly 
cosmopolitan,  and  the  editorials  setting  forth  the 
interpretation  of  contemporary  events  were  char 
acterized  by  sanity  and  breadth. 

In  addition  to  the  fact   that   Lanier's  first 

1  Letters  to  Northrup. 


76  SIDNEY   LANIER 

poems  were  published  in  this  journal,1  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  it  exerted  considerable  influence  over 
him  —  especially  in  two  directions.  Its  broad 
national  policy  —  more  sympathetic  than  that  of 
the  "  Nation  "  even  —  was  evidence  to  him  that 
there  were  Northern  people  who  were  magnani 
mous  in  their  attitude  to  Southern  problems.  He 
was  especially  impressed  with  an  editorial  on  the 
"  Duties  of  Peace  "  (July  7, 1866)  as  "the  most 
sensible  discussion  "  he  had  seen  of  the  whole 
situation.  In  it  were  these  striking  words  :  "The 
people  of  the  South  are  our  brothers,  bone  of 
our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  They  have 
courage,  integrity,  honor,  patriotism,  and  all  the 
manly  virtues  as  well  as  ourselves.  .  .  .  Can  we 
realize  that  our  duty  now  is  to  heal,  not  to  pun 
ish?  ...  Consider  their  dilapidated  cities,  their 
deserted  plantations,  their  impoverished  country, 
their  loss  of  personal  property  by  thousands  of 
millions ;  far  more  than  this,  their  buried  dead 
and  desolate  hearts.  ...  No  one  with  a  heart  can 
realize  the  truth  of  their  condition  without  feeling 
that  the  punishment  has  been  terrific.  We  should 
address  ourselves  to  the  grave  task  of  restoring 
the  disrupted  relations  of  the  two  sections  by 

1  "  In  the  Foam,"  "  Barnacles,"  "  The  Tournament,"  "  Re 
surrection,"  "  Laughter  in  the  Senate  "  (not  in  his  collected 
poems),  "A  Birthday  Song,"  "Tyranny,"  and  "Life  and 
Song "  were  published  in  the  Bound  Table  during  1867  and 
1868. 


SEEKING   A  VOCATION  77 

acts  of  genuine  kindness,  truthfulness,  fairness, 
and  love.  ...  In  a  word,  let  the  era  of  blood  be 
followed  by  another  era  of  good  feeling."  The 
whole  editorial  is  in  accordance  with  the  pre 
viously  announced  policy  of  the  paper :  "  The 
Eebellion  extinguished,  the  next  duty  is  to  ex 
tinguish  the  sectional  spirit,  and  to  seek  to 
create  fraternal  feeling  among  all  the  States  of 
the  Union." 

In  discussing  literary  questions  the  "  Round 
Table  "  showed  the  same  national  spirit,  manifest 
ing  a  healthy  interest  in  those  few  Southern  writ 
ers  who  were  left  after  the  deluge.  The  words 
found  in  two  editorials,  calling  for  a  more  vigor 
ous  and  original  class  of  writers,  must  have  ap 
pealed  to  Lanier.  An  editorial,  May  12,  1866, 
entitled  a  "  Plain  Talk  with  American  Writers," 
said  :  "  In  fact  the  literary  field  was  never  so 
barren,  never  so  utterly  without  hope  or  life.  .  .  . 
The  era  of  genius  and  vigor  that  seemed  ready 
to  burst  upon  us  only  a  few  months  ago  has  not 
been  fulfilled.  There  is  a  lack  of  boldness  and 
power.  Men  do  not  seem  to  strike  out  in  new 
paths  as  bravely  as  of  old.  ...  We  have  very 
little  strong,  original  writing.  Who  will  waken 
us  from  this  sleep  ?  Who  will  first  show  us  the 
first  signs  of  a  genuine  literary  reviving  ?  "  And 
again,  July  14,  1866,  "  We  look  to  see  young 
men  coming  forward  who  shall  inaugurate  a 


78  SIDNEY   LANIER 

better  literature.  ...  If  ever  there  was  a  time 
when  a  magnificent  field  opened  to  young  aspir 
ants  for  literary  renown,  that  time  is  the  present. 
Every  door  is  wide  open.  .  .  .  All  the  graces  of 
poesy  and  art  and  music  stand  waiting  by,  ready 
to  welcome  a  bold  new-comer.  .  .  .  Who  will 
come  forward  and  inaugurate  a  new  era  of  bold, 
electrical,  impressive  writing  ?  " 

With  some  such  ambition  as  this  in  his  mind, 
Lanier  gave  up  his  work  in  Montgomery  in  the 
spring  of  1867  and  went  to  New  York  with  the 
completed  manuscript  of  <4  Tiger  Lilies."  1  He 
was  there  for  more  than  a  month,  finally  arran 
ging  for  its  publication  with  Hurd  &  Houghton, 
the  predecessors  of  the  present  firm  of  Hough- 
ton,  Miiflin  &  Co.  He  was  enabled  to  publish 
his  book  by  the  generous  help  of  Mr.  J.  F.  D. 
Lanier.  Some  of  his  experiences  on  this,  his  first 
visit  to  the  metropolis,  are  significant.  He  is 
somewhat  dazed  by  the  life  of  the  big  city.  "  I 
tell  you,"  he  writes  to  a  friend,  "  the  Heavens  are 
alien  to  this  town,  and  if  it  were  anybody  else 
but  the  Infinite  God  that  owned  them,  he  would 
n't  let  them  bend  so  blue  over  here."  In  a  letter 
to  his  father,  April  16,  he  describes  the  view  of 

1  William  Gilmore  Simms  was  there  at  about  the  same  time 
trying  to  get  started  again  in  his  literary  work,  and  Edward 
Rowland  Sill  was  making  his  first  venture  into  the  literary 
world. 


SEEKING  A  VOCATION  79 

the  city  from  Trinity  Church  steeple  and  tells 
a  characteristic  incident :  "  The  grand  array  of 
houses  and  ships  and  rivers  and  distant  hills  did 
not  arrest  my  soul  as  did  the  long  line  of  men 
and  women,  which  at  that  height  seemed  to  writhe 
and  contort  itself  in  its  narrow  bed  of  Broadway 
as  in  a  premature  grave.  ...  I  have  not  seen 
here  a  single  eye  that  knew  itself  to  be  in  front 
of  a  heart  —  but  one,  and  that  was  a  blue  one, 
and  a  child  owned  it.  'T  was  the  very  double  of 
Sissa's  [the  name  for  his  sister]  eye,  so  I  had  no 
sooner  seen  it  than  I  made  love  to  it,  with  what 
success  you  will  hear.  On  Saturday  I  dined  with 
J.  F.  D.  Lanier.  We  had  only  a  family  party. 
.  .  .  Last  and  best  little  Kate  Lanier,  eight 
years  old,  pearly  cheeked,  blue  eyed,  broad  of 
forehead,  cherried  i'  the  lip.  About  the  time  that 
the  champagne  came  on  I  happened  to  mention 
that  I  had  been  in  prison  during  the  war. 

"  s  Poor  fellow ! '  says  little  Katie, '  and  how  did 
the  rebels  treat  you  ?  ' 

"  '  Rebels,'  said  I, ;  I  am  a  rebel  myself,  Kate  ! ' 

"  4  What ! '  she  exclaimed,  and  lifted  up  her 
little  lilies  (when  I  say  lilies  I  mean  hands),  and 
peered  at  me  curiously  with  all  her  blue  eyes 
astare.  4  A  live  Reb  ! ' 

"  This  phrase  in  Katie's  nursery  had  taken  the 
time-honored  place  of  bugaboos,  and  hobgob 
lins,  and  men  under  the  bed.  She  could  not 


80  SIDNEY  LANIER 

realize  that  I,  a  smooth-faced,  slender,  ordinary 
mortal,  in  all  respects  like  a  common  man,  should 
be  a  live  reb.  She  was  inclined  to  hate  me,  as 
in  duty  bound. 

"  I  will  not  describe  the  manner  of  the  siege 
I  laid  to  her :  suffice  it  that  when  I  rose  to  take 
leave,  Katie  stood  up  before  [me],  and  half 
blushed,  and  paused  a  minute. 

"  With  a  coquetry  I  never  saw  executed  more 
prettily,  4 1  know,'  said  she,  '  that  you  are  dying 
for  a  kiss,  and  you  're  ashamed  to  ask  for  it. 
You  may  take  one.'  .  .  .  And  so  in  triumph, 
and  singing  poems  to  all  blue  eyes,  I  said  good 
night." 

Leaving  "  Tiger  Lilies  "  in  the  hands  of  the 
publishers,  he  returned  to  Macon,  where  in  Sep 
tember  we  find  him  reading  the  proof  of  the  same. 
The  novel  appeared  in  October  and  was  reviewed 
somewhat  at  length  in  the  "  Round  Table." 1 
The  review  refers  to  Lanier  as  "  the  author  of 
some  quaint  and  graceful  verses  published  from 
time  to  time  in  the  4  Round  Table.'  "  "  His  novel 
goes  a  long  way  to  confirm  the  good  opinion 
which  his  poems  suggested.  We  have,  indeed, 
seldom  read  a  first  book  more  pregnant  with 
promise,  or  fuller  of  the  faults  which,  more 
surely  than  precocious  perfection,  betoken  talent. 
.  .  .  His  errors  seem  to  be  entirely  errors  of 

1  Bound  Table,  December  14,  1867. 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  81 

youth  and  in  the  right  direction."  "  Exuberance 
is  more  easily  corrected  than  sterility."  "  His 
dialogue  reads  too  often  like  a  catalogue  raisonne 
of  his  library."  The  critic  finds  traces  of  a 
scholarly  and  poetic  taste,  but  withal  a  straining 
after  novelty  and  "  an  affectation  of  quaintness 
so  marked  as  to  be  often  unpleasant."  He  ob 
jects  to  long  abstract  disquisitions  on  meta 
physics  and  music.  He  commends  it,  however, 
for  being  "  unmarred  by  the  bad  taste  of  its 
contemporaries  in  fanning  a  senseless  and  profit 
less  sectional  rancor." 

With  this  review  the  reader  of  "  Tiger  Lilies  " 
at  the  present  time  must  agree.  It  is  seldom  that 
one  finds  a  bit  of  contemporary  criticism  that 
hits  the  mark  so  well  as  this.  As  a  story  it  is 
a  failure  —  the  plot  is  badly  managed  and  the 
work  is  strikingly  uneven.  Lanier  was  aware 
of  its  defects,  and  yet  pointed  out  its  value  to 
any  student  of  his  life.  In  a  letter  to  his  father 
from  Montgomery,  July  13,  1866,  he  says  :  "  I 
have  in  the  last  part  adopted  almost  exclusively 
the  dramatic,  rather  than  the  descriptive,  style 
which  reigns  in  the  earlier  portions,  interspersed 
with  much  high  talk.  Indeed,  the  book  which  I 
commenced  to  write  in  1863  and  have  touched 
at  intervals  until  now,  represents  in  its  change 
of  style  almost  precisely  the  change  of  tone 
which  has  gradually  been  taking  place  in  me  all 


82  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  time.  So  much  so,  that  it  has  become  highly 
interesting  to  me  :  I  seem  to  see  portions  of  my 
old  self,  otherwise  forgotten,  here  preserved." 

The  note  sounded  in  the  preface  is  characteris 
tic.  He  professes  "  a  love,  strong  as  it  is  hum 
ble,  for  what  is  beautiful  in  God's  Nature  and  in 
man's  Art."  He  utters  a  plea  against  "  the  hor 
rible  piquancies  of  quaint  crimes  and  of  white- 
handed  criminals,  with  which  so  many  books 
have  recently  stimulated  the  pruriency  of  men ; 
and  begs  that  the  following  pages  may  be  judged 
only  as  registering  a  faint  cry,  sent  from  a  re 
gion  where  there  are  few  artists  to  happier  lands 
that  own  many ;  calling  on  these  last  for  more 
sunshine  and  less  night  in  their  art,  more  vir 
tuous  women  and  fewer  Lydian  Guelts,  more 
household  sweetness  and  less  Bohemian  despair, 
clearer  chords  and  fewer  suspensions,  broader 
quiet  skies  and  shorter  grotesque  storms  ;  since 
there  are  those,  even  here  in  the  South,  who  still 
love  beautiful  things  with  sincere  passion." 

The  story  may  be  briefly  indicated.  The  back 
ground  of  the  first  book  is,  as  has  been  seen, 
the  mountain  scenery  of  East  Tennessee.  A 
party  of  hunters  —  including  Philip  Sterling 
and  Paul  Riibetsahl,  two  young  transcendental- 
ists  —  are  on  a  stand  waiting  for  deer.  Philip 
Sterling  —  with  "  large  gray  poet's  eyes,  with  a 
dream  in  each  and  a  sparkle  behind  it "  —  is  liv- 


SEEKING  A  VOCATION  83 

ing  in  the  mountains  with  his  father  John  Ster 
ling  and  his  sister  Felix  —  their  home  a  veritable 
palace  of  art.  Riibetsahl  is  from  Frankfort, 
Germany,  whence  he  brings  an  enthusiasm  for 
music  and  philosophy,  into  which  he  inducts  his 
newly  found  friends.  Another  companion  is  John 
Cranston,  a  Northerner  who  had  also  lived  in 
Frankfort,  where  he  had  often  been  compared 
to  Goethe  in  his  youth.  He  had  Lucifer  eyes,  he 
spoke  French  and  German  ;  he  "  walked  like  a 
young  god,  he  played  people  mad  with  his  vio 
lin."  These  lovers  of  music  and  poetry  furnish 
much  amusement  to  the  native  mountaineers,  one 
of  whom,  Cain  Smallin,  becomes  one  of  the 
prominent  characters  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
book.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  this  charac 
ter  and  his  brother,  who  turns  out  to  be  a  vil 
lain,  Lanier  anticipated  some  of  the  sketches  by 
Charles  Egbert  Craddock.  The  merry  party  of 
hunters  retire  to  Sterling's  house,  where  they  en 
joy  the  blessings  of  good  friendship  and  of  music 
and  high  thought.  They,  with  other  friends  from 
all  parts  of  the  South,  plan  a  masquerade  party, 
in  which  they  represent  the  various  characters 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  and  the  knights  of  the 
Round  Table.  After  a  scene  of  much  merri 
ment  and  good  humor,  Cranston  and  Riibetsahl 
fight  a  duel  —  both  of  them  being  in  love  with 
Felix  Sterling,  each  knowing  the  other's  history 


84  SIDNEY   LANIER 

at  Frankfort.  In  the  mean  time  Ottilie  with  her 
maid  comes  from  Germany  to  Chilhowee.  She 
was  formerly  the  lover  of  Riibetsahl,  and  was  be 
trayed  by  Cranston.  She  becomes  identified  with 
the  Sterling  family,  she  herself  being  a  musi 
cian,  and  naturally  finding  her  place  among  these 
music-loving  people. 

The  first  book  is  filled  with  "  high  talk  "  on 
music,  poetry,  philosophy,  and  nature.  These 
conversations  and  masquerade  parties,  however, 
are  interrupted  by  war.  The  author  omits  the 
breaking  out  of  the  war  and  the  first  three  years 
of  it.  The  action  is  resumed  at  Bur  well's  Bay, 
where  we  meet  the  hero  again  with  "  a  light  rifle 
on  his  shoulder,  with  a  good  horse  bounding 
along  under  him,  with  a  fresh  breeze  that  had  in 
it  the  vigor  of  the  salt  sea  and  the  caressing 
sweetness  of  the  spring  blowing  upon  him." 
With  him  are  "  five  friends,  tried  in  the  tempests 
of  war,  as  well  as  by  the  sterner  tests  of  the 
calm  association  of  inactive  camp  life."  The 
story  here  is  strictly  autobiographical,  and  is 
filled  with  some  stirring  incidents  taken  from 
Lanier's  life  as  a  scout.  Perhaps  the  most  strik 
ing  scene  in  the  book  is  the  one  in  which  Cain 
Smallin  finds  out  that  his  brother  is  a  deserter. 
Never  did  Lanier  come  so  near  creating  a  scene 
of  real  dramatic  power.1  "  We  was  poor.  We 

1  Part  ii,  chapter  vi. 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  85 

ain't  never  had  much  to  live  on  but  our  name, 
which  it  was  as  good  as  gold.  And  now  it  ain't  no 
better  'n  rusty  copper ;  hit  '11  be  green  and  pi- 
senous.  An'  whose  done  it  ?  Gorm  Smallin !  My 
own  brother,  Gorm  Smallin !  "  When  he  finds 
his  brother  he  says  to  him :  "  Ef  ye  had  been 
killed  in  a  fa'r  battle,  I  mought  ha'  been  able  to 
fight  hard  enough  for  both  of  us ;  for  every  time 
I  cried  a-thinkin'  of  you,  I  'd  ha'  been  twice  as 
strong,  an'  twice  as  clear-sighted  as  I  was  buf- 
f ore.  But  —  sich  things  as  these  burns  me  an' 
weakens  me  and  hurts  my  eyes  that  bad  that 
I  kin  scarcely  look  a  man  straight  furard  in 
the  face.  Hit  don't  make  much  difference  to 
me  now  whether  we  whips  the  Yanks  or  they 
whips  us.  .  .  .  We  is  kin  to  a  deserter !  .  .  . 
I  cain't  shoot  ye  hardly.  The  same  uns  raised 
us  and  fed  us.  I  cain't  do  it;  an'  I  am  sorry 
I  caiu't."  He  then  makes  him  swear  a  vow: 
"  God  A'mighty  's  a-lookin  at  you  out  o'  the  stars 
yon,  an'  he  's  a-listenin'  at  you  out  o'  the  sand 
here,  and  he  won't  git  tired  by  mornin'." 

The  coming  of  gunboats  up  the  river  scatters 
the  party  in  all  directions,  some  to  prison  and 
others  to  the  final  scenes  around  Kichmond,  with 
the  burning  of  which  the  story  closes,  not,  how 
ever,  before  the  palace  in  the  mountains  —  where 
John  Sterling  and  his  wife,  Felix  and  Ottilie, 
have  spent  the  intervening  time  —  is  set  fire  to 


86  SIDNEY   LANIER 

by  Gorm  Smallin.  The  story  is  scarcely  signi 
ficant  enough  to  follow  all  the  threads. 

"  Tiger  Lilies  "  has  the  same  place  in  Lanier's 
life  that  "  Hyperion  "  has  in  Longfellow's.  They 
are  both  failures  as  novels  or  romances,  but  they 
are  valuable  as  autobiographies.  Instead  of  lay 
ing  the  scene  in  Germany,  which  he  had  never 
seen  and  yet  yearned  for,  Lanier  brings  Ger 
many  to  America.  There  are  long  disquisitions 
on  the  place  of  music  and  science  in  the  modern 
world,  many  crude  fancies,  some  striking  de 
scriptions  of  nature,  some  of  which  have  already 
been  quoted.  Above  all,  there  is  Lanier's  idea  of 
what  a  musician  or  a  poet  ought  to  be,  —  a  study, 
therefore,  of  himself. 

Perhaps  the  best  single  passage  on  music  is 
that  describing  Phil's  playing  of  the  flute.  "  It 
is  like  walking  in  the  woods,  amongst  wild  flow 
ers,  just  before  you  go  into  some  vast  cathedral. 
For  the  flute  seems  to  me  to  be  peculiarly  the 
woods-instrument :  it  speaks  the  gloss  of  green 
leaves  or  the  pathos  of  bare  branches  ;  it  calls  up 
the  strange  mosses  that  are  under  dead  leaves ; 
it  breathes  of  wild  plants  that  hide  and  oak 
fragrances  that  vanish ;  it  expresses  to  me  the 
natural  magic  of  music.  Have  you  ever  walked 
on  long  afternoons  in  warm,  sunny  spots  of  the 
woods,  and  felt  a  sudden  thrill  strike  you  with 
the  half  fear  that  a  ghost  would  rise  out  of  the 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  87 

sedge,  or  dart  from  behind  the  next  tree,  and 
confront  you  ?  "  l 

Two  passages  may  be  cited  to  show  the  au 
thor's  tendency  to  use  personifications  and  his 
insight  into  the  "  burthen  of  the  mystery  of  all 
this  unintelligible  world :  "  — 

"  A  terrible  melee  of  winged  opposites  is  for 
ever  filling  the  world  with  a  battle  din  which 
only  observant  souls  hear:  Love  contending 
with  Impurity ;  Passion  springing  mines  under 
the  calm  entrenchment  of  Reason ;  scowling 
Ignorance  thrusting  in  the  dark  at  holy-eyed 
Reverence ;  Romance  deathfully  encountering 
Sentimentality  on  the  one  side  and  Common 
place  on  the  other ;  young  Sensibility  clanging 
swords  with  gigantic  maudlin  Conventionalities. 
...  I  have  seen  no  man  who  did  not  suffer 
from  the  shock  of  these  wars,  unless  he  got  help 
from  that  One  Man  whom  it  is  not  unmanly  to 
acknowledge  our  superior."  2 

"  Nature  has  no  politics.  She  '11  grow  a  rose 
as  well  for  York  as  Lancaster,  and  mayhap  beat 
both  down  next  minute  with  a  storm ! 

"  She  has  no  heart ;  else  she  never  had  rained 
on  Lear's  head. 

"  She  has  no  eyes ;  for,  seeing,  she  could 
never  have  drowned  that  dainty  girl,  Ophelia. 

"  She  has  no  ears ;  or  she  would  hear  the  wild 
l  Tiger  Lilies,  p.  28.  2  Ibid.  p.  41. 


88  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Sabian  hymns  to  Night  and  prayers  to  Day  that 
men  are  uttering  evermore. 

"  O  blind,  deaf,  no-hearted  Beauty,  we  cannot 
woo  thee,  for  thou  silently  contemnest  us ;  we 
cannot  force  thee,  for  thou  art  stronger  than 
we ;  we  cannot  compromise  with  thee,  for  thou 
art  treacherous  as  thy  seas ;  what  shall  we  do, 
we,  unhappy,  that  love  thee,  coquette  Nature  ?  "  1 

When  "  Tiger  Lilies  "  appeared  it  was  very  fa 
vorably  received.  Lanier  writes  to  his  brother  of 
the  "  continual  heavy  showers  of  compliment  and 
congratulation  "  that  he  has  received  in  Macon ; 
that  the  Macon  paper  had.  an  editorial  on  his 
novel,  and  that  a  book  firm  in  the  town  had 
already  disposed  of  a  large  number  of  copies. 
Writing  to  Northrup,  March  8,  1868,  he  says : 
"  My  book  has  been  as  well  received  as  a  young 
author  could  have  expected  on  his  first  plunge, 
and  I  have  seen  few  criticisms  upon  it  which  are 
not  on  the  whole  favorable.  My  publishers  have 
just  made  me  an  offer  to  bring  out  a  second 
edition  on  very  fair  terms ;  from  which  I  infer 
that  the  sale  of  the  article  is  progressing."  2  At 
twenty-five,  then,  he  was  recognized  as  one  of  the 
promising  writers  of  the  South ;  a  biographical 
article  referring  to  his  recent  success,  the  "  Tiger 
Lilies,"  was  written  by  J.  Wood  Davidson  for 

1  Tiger  Lilies,  p.  178. 

2  There  was  never  a  second  edition,  however. 


SEEKING   A    VOCATION  89 

his  "  Living  Writers  of  the  South,"  which  ap 
peared  in  1869,  and  his  name  was  sought  by 
ambitious  editors  of  mushroom  magazines  that 
sprang  up  in  abundance  after  the  war. 

Lanier  was  not  destined,  however,  to  begin  his 
literary  career  as  yet,  nor  was  the  South  to  have 
such  an  easy  way  out  of  her  disaster  as  he  had 
hoped.  He  had  made  only  one  reference  to  poli 
tics  in  his  romance,  and  that  was  his  manly  utter 
ance  in  behalf  of  Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  then 
confined  in  prison  under  rather  disagreeable  cir 
cumstances  at  Fortress  Monroe.  He  said,  "  If 
there  was  guilt  in  any,  there  was  guilt  in  nigh 
all  of  us,  between  Maryland  and  Mexico ;  Mr. 
Davis,  if  he  be  termed  the  ringleader  of  the  Re 
bellion,  was  so,  not  by  virtue  of  any  instigating 
act  of  his,  but  purely  by  the  unanimous  will  and 
appointment  of  the  Southern  people ;  and  the 
hearts  of  the  Southern  people  bleed  to  see  how 
their  own  act  has  resulted  in  the  chaining  of  Mr. 
Davis,  who  was  as  innocent  as  they,  and  in  the 
pardon  of  those  who  were  guilty  as  he." 

The  Davis  incident  was  an  indication  that 
forces  other  than  those  which  one  might  have 
hoped  to  see  were  in  the  air.  By  the  fall  of  1867 
the  reaction  against  the  magnanimous  policy  of 
Lincoln  had  come  in  the  North.  Reconstruction 
governments  were  being  inaugurated  throughout 
the  South.  This  was  due  in  part  to  the  lack  of 


90  SIDNEY   LANIER 

wisdom  displayed  by  Southern  legislatures  under 
the  Johnson  governments,  —  a  "disposition  on 
the  part  of  the  Southern  States  to  claim  rights 
instead  of  submitting  to  conditions,"  and  harsh 
laws  of  Southern  legislatures  concerning  the 
freedmen.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the  extreme 
men  of  the  South  were  in  some  localities  as  rash, 
unreasonable,  and  impracticable  as  the  radicals 
of  the  North.  The  magnanimous  spirit  of  Lin 
coln  and  the  heroic,  chivalric  spirit  of  Lee  could 
not  prevail  in  the  two  sections ;  hence  followed 
a  direful  period  in  American  history.  As  E.  L. 
Godkin  said,  "  That  the  chapter  which  tells  the 
story  of  reconstruction  should  have  followed  in 
American  history  the  chapter  which  tells  the 
story  of  the  war  and  emancipation,  is  something 
over  which  many  a  generation  will  blush." 

Again  it  must  be  said,  as  was  said  of  the 
effect  of  the  war  on  the  South,  that  reconstruc 
tion  was  something  more  than  excessive  taxation, 
grinding  and  unjust  as  that  was,  something 
more  than  the  fear  of  black  domination,  as  un 
thinkable  as  that  is.  There  was  the  uncertainty 
of  the  situation,  the  sense  of  despair  that  rankled 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  with  the  knowledge  that 
nothing  the  South  could  do  could  have  any  influ 
ence  in  deciding  its  fate.  It  was  the  closing  of 
institutions  of  learning,  or  running  them  under 
such  circumstances  that  the  better  element  of 


SEEKING  A   VOCATION  91 

the  South  could  have  nothing  to  do  with  them. 
Lanier,  writing  about  a  position  in  the  University 
of  Alabama  which  he  very  much  desired,  said : 
"  The  trustees,  who  are  appointees  of  the  State, 
are  so  hampered  by  the  expected  change  of 
State  government  that  nothing  can  be  certainly 
predicated  as  to  their  action." 

Lanier  felt  the  effect  of  reconstruction  at 
every  point,  —  he  was  baptized  with  the  baptism 
of  the  Southern  people.  The  weight  of  that  sad 
time  bore  heavily  upon  him.  As  he  had  during 
the  war  touched  the  experience  of  his  people  at 
every  point,  so  now  he  went  down  with  them 
into  the  Valley  of  Humiliation. 

Under  these  circumstances  his  friend  North- 
rup  wrote  him,  inviting  him  to  go  to  Germany 
with  him.  He  replied:  "  Indeed,  indeed,  y'r 
trip-to-Europe  invitation  finds  me  all  thirsty  to 
go  with  you ;  but,  alas,  how  little  do  you  know 
of  our  wretched  poverties  and  distresses  here,  — 
that  you  ask  me  such  a  thing.  ...  It  spoils  our 
dreams  of  Germany,  ruthlessly.  I  've  been  pre 
siding  over  eighty-six  scholars,  in  a  large  Aca 
demy  at  Prattville,  Ala.,  having  two  assistants 
under  me  ;  't  is  terrible  work,  and  the  labor  diffi 
culties,  with  the  recent  poor  price  of  cotton,  con 
spire  to  make  the  pay  very  slim.  I  think  y'r 
people  can  have  no  idea  of  the  slow  terrors  with 
which  this  winter  has  invested  our  life  in  the 


92  SIDNEY   LANIER 

South.  Some  time  I'm  going  to  give  you  a  few 
simple  details,  which  you  must  publish  in  your 
paper." 

Prattville,  where  he  spent  the  winter  of  1867- 
68,  was  a  small  manufacturing  town,  with  all  the 
crudeness  of  a  new  industrial  order  and  without 
any  of  the  refinement  to  which  Lanier  had  been 
accustomed  in  Macon  and  elsewhere.  Perhaps 
there  was  never  a  time  when  drudgery  so 
weighed  upon  him,  although  his  usual  playful 
ness  is  seen  in  the  remark :  "  There  is  but  one 
man  in  my  school  who  could  lick  me  in  a  fair 
fight,  and  he  thinks  me  at  once  a  Samson 
and  a  Solomon."  He  worked  for  people  who 
thought  that  he  was  defrauding  them  if  he  did 
not  work  from  "  sun  up  to  sun  down,"  as  one  of 
his  patrons  expressed  it.  It  was  here,  too,  that 
he  suffered  from  his  first  hemorrhages.  His 
poetry  written  at  this  time  was  an  expression 
of  the  despair  which  prevailed  throughout  the 
South.  He  whom  the  Civil  War  had  not  in 
spired  to  speech,  and  who  had  kept  silent  under 
the  suffering  of  the  days  after  the  war,  now 
gave  expression  to  his  disgust  and  his  indigna 
tion.  It  is  not  great  poetry,  for  Lanier  was 
not  adapted  to  that  kind  of  poetry,  and  conse 
quently  neither  he  nor  his  wife  ever  collected 
all  the  poems.  "  Laughter  in  the  Senate,"  pub 
lished  in  the  "Round  Table,"  is  typical  of 


SEEKING  A   VOCATION  93 

a  group,  several  of  which   he   left   in    an  old 
ledger :  — 

Comes  now  the  Peace,  so  long  delayed  ? 
Is  it  the  cheerful  voice  of  aid  ? 
Begins  the  time,  his  heart  has  prayed, 
When  men  may  reap  and  sow  ? 

Ah,  God  !  back  to  the  cold  earth's  breast! 
The  sages  chuckle  o'er  their  jest! 
Must  they,  to  give  a  people  rest, 
Their  dainty  wit  forego  ? 

The  tyrants  sit  in  a  stately  hall; 
They  gibe  at  a  wretched  people's  fall; 
The  tyrants  forget  how  fresh  is  the  pall 
Over  their  dead  and  ours. 

Look  how  the  senators  ape  the  clown, 
And  don  the  motley  and  hide  the  gown, 
But  yonder  a  fast  rising  frown 

On  the  people's  forehead  lowers. 

To  the  same  effect  he  wrote  in  unpublished 
poems,  "  Steel  in  Soft  Hands "  and  "  To  Our 
Hills : "  - 

We  mourn  your  fall  into  daintier  hands 

Of  senators,  rosy  fingered, 
That  wrote  while  you  fought, 

And  afar  from  the  battles  lingered. 

And  again  in  "  Raven  Days  "  and  "  Tyranny: "  — 

Oh,  Raven  days,  dark  Raven  days  of  sorrow, 
Will  ever  any  warm  light  come  again  ? 

Will  ever  the  lit  mountains  of  To-morrow 
Begin  to  gleam  athwart  the  mournful  plain  ? 


94  SIDNEY  LANIER 

Young  Trade  is  dead, 

And  swart  Work  sullen  sits  in  the  hillside  fern 
And  folds  his  arms  that  find  no  bread  to  earn, 

And  bows  his  head. 

In  a  letter  to  his  father,  January  21,  1868, 
he  wrote :  "  There  are  strong  indications  here 
of  much  bad  feeling  between  the  whites  and 
blacks,  especially  those  engaged  in  the  late  row 
at  this  place ;  and  I  have  fears,  which  are 
shared  by  Mr.  Pratt  and  many  citizens  here, 
that  some  indiscretion  of  the  more  thoughtless 
among  the  whites  may  plunge  us  into  bloodshed. 
The  whites  have  no  organization  at  all,  and 
the  affair  would  be  a  mere  butchery.  .  .  .  The 
Canton  imbroglio  may  precipitate  matters." 
Writing  of  laws  passed  by  Congress,  he  said: 
"  Who  will  find  words  to  express  the  sorrowful 
surprise  at  their  total  absence  of  philosophical 
insight  into  the  age  which  has  resulted  in  those 
hundreds  of  laws  recently  promulgated  by  the 
reigning  body  in  the  United  States ;  laws  which, 
if  from  no  other  cause,  at  least  from  sheer  mul 
tiplicity,  are  wholly  at  variance  with  the  genius 
of  the  time  and  of  the  people,  laws  which  have 
resulted  in  such  a  mass  of  crime  and  hatred  and 
bitterness  as  even  the  four  terrible  years  of  war 
have  entirely  failed  to  bring  about."  1 

He  recognized  the  need  of  some  great  man. 

1  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  p.  31. 


SEEKING  A  VOCATION  95 

A  pilot,  God,  a  pilot  !  for  the  helm  is  left  awry. 

Years  later,  when  the  end  of  the  reconstruc 
tion  period  had  come,  he  described  a  type  of 
man  that  was  needed  for  this  emergency  :  whether 
he  realized  it  or  not,  it  was  a  wish  that  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  might  have  been  spared  to  meet  the 
situation.  "  I  have  been  wondering  where  we 
are  going  to  get  a  Great  Man,  that  will  be  tall 
enough  to  see  over  the  whole  country,  and  to 
direct  that  vast  undoing  of  things  which  has  got 
to  be  accomplished  in  a  few  years.  It  is  a  situa 
tion  in  which  mere  cleverness  will  not  begin  to 
work.  The  horizon  of  cleverness  is  too  limited ; 
it  does  not  embrace  enough  of  the  heart  of  man, 
to  enable  a  merely  clever  politician,  such  as  those 
in  which  we  abound,  to  lead  matters  properly 
in  this  juncture.  The  vast  generosities  which 
whirl  a  small  revenge  out  of  the  way,  as  the  winds 
whirl  a  leaf;  the  awful  integrities  which  will 
pay  a  debt  twice  rather  than  allow  the  faintest 
flicker  of  suspicion  about  it ;  the  splendid  indig 
nations  which  are  also  tender  compassions,  and 
will  in  one  moment  be  hustling  the  money 
changers  out  of  the  Temple,  and  in  the  next  be 
preaching  Love  to  them  from  the  steps  of  it,  — 
where  are  we  to  find  these  ?  It  is  time  for  a  man 
to  arise  who  is  a  man."  l 

This  state  of  affairs  here  set  forth  in  Lanier's 
1  Letter  to  Judge  Logan  E.  Bleckley,  Nov.  15,  1874. 


96  SIDNEY   LANIER 

words  caused  many  to  leave  the  South  in  absolute 
despair  of  its  future.  It  drove  Maurice  Thomp 
son  from  Georgia  to  Indiana,  and  the  Le  Conte 
brothers  from  Columbia  to  California.  It  caused 
the  middle-aged  Lamar  to  stand  sorrowfully  at 
his  gate  in  the  afternoons  in  Oxford,  Missis 
sippi,  gazing  wistfully  into  the  west,  while  young 
men  like  Henry  Grady — naturally  optimistic  and 
buoyant  —  wondered  what  could  be  the  future 
for  them.  There  is  no  better  evidence  of  the  he 
roism  of  Lanier  than  the  way  in  which  he  met 
the  situation  that  confronted  him.  He  found 
refuge  in  intellectual  work.  In  a  letter  to  his 
father  he  urges  him  to  send  him  the  latest  maga 
zines  and  books.  June  1,  1868,  he  writes  from 
Prattville :  "  I  shall  go  to  work  on  my  essays, 
and  on  a  course  of  study  in  German  and  in  the 
Latin  works  of  Lucretius,  whom  I  have  long  de 
sired  to  study."  In  another  letter  he  said :  "  I 
have  been  deeply  engaged  in  working  out  some 
metaphysical  ideas  for  some  time,  —  an  application 
which  goes  on  all  the  time,  whether  I  sit  at  desk  or 
walk  the  streets."  The  volume  of  essays  referred 
to  was  never  published,  but  we  have  some  of 
them  in  the  essays  "  Ketrospects  and  Prospects," 
"  Nature-Metaphors,"  and  some  unpublished  ones 
in  an  old  ledger  in  which  he  wrote  at  this  time, 
such  as  "  The  Oversight  of  Modern  Philosophy," 
"  Cause  and  Effect,"  "  Time  and  Space,"  "  The 


SEEKING   A   VOCATION  97 

Solecisms  of  Mathematics,"  "  Devil's  Bombs," 
and  other  essays,  which  reveal  Lanier's  tendency 
to  speculative  philosophy  and  his  exuberant 
fancy.  In  this  same  ledger  he  wrote  down  many 
quotations,  which  show  that  at  the  time  he  was 
not  only  keeping  up  with  contemporary  literature, 
but  continuing  his  reading  in  German  poetry. 

In  the  meantime,  December  21,  1867,  Lanier 
had  married  Miss  Mary  Day.  "  Not  even  the  wide- 
mouthed,  villainous-nosed,  tallow-faced  drudger 
ies  of  my  eighty-fold  life,"  he  wrote  his  father, 
"  can  squeeze  the  sentiment  out  of  me."  From 
the  worldly  standpoint  it  was  a  serious  mistake 
to  marry,  with  no  prospect  of  position  and  in  the 
general  upheaval  of  society  about  them.  But  to 
the  two  lovers  no  such  considerations  could  ap 
peal,  and  with  his  marriage  to  this  accomplished 
woman  came  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  of 
Lanier's  life.  It  was  "  an  idyllic  marriage,  which 
the  poet  thought  a  rich  compensation  for  all 
the  other  perfect  gifts  which  Providence  denied 
him."  She  was  a  sufferer  like  himself,  but  her 
accuracy  and  alertness  of  mind,  her  rare  appre 
ciation  of  music,  and  her  deep  divining  of  his 
own  powers,  made  her  the  ideal  wife  of  the  poet. 
Those  who  know  "  My  Springs  "  and  the  series 
of  sonnets  which  he  wrote  to  her  during  their 
separation  when  he -was  spending  the  winters  in 
Baltimore,  need  not  be  told  of  the  part  that  this 


98  SIDNEY   LANIER 

love  played  in  his  life.  Perhaps  there  are  no  two 
single  lines  in  American  poetry  which  express 
better  the  deeper  meaning  of  love  than  these  :  — 

I  marvel  that  God  made  you  mine, 
For  when  He  frowns  't  is  then  ye  shine. 

In  his  later  lectures  at  the  Peabody  Institute  in 
Baltimore,  contrasting  the  heroines  of  epic  poetry 
with  the  lyric  woman  of  modern  times,  —  the 
patient  wife  in  the  secure  home,  —  he  said : 
"  But  the  daily  grandeurs  which  every  good  wife, 
no  matter  how  uneventful  her  lot,  must  achieve, 
the  secret  endurances  which  not  only  have  no 
poet  to  sing  them,  but  no  human  eye  even  to  see 
them,  the  heroism  which  is  as  fine  and  bright  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  as  it  is  at  noonday, 
all  those  prodigious  fortitudes  under  sorrows 
which  one  is  scarcely  willing  to  whisper  even 
to  God  Almighty,  and  of  which  probably  every 
delicate-souled  woman  knows,  either  by  intuition 
or  actual  experience,  —  this  lyric  heroism,  alto 
gether  great  and  beautiful  as  it  is,  does  not  ap 
pear,  save  by  one  or  two  brief  glimpses,  in  the 
early  poetry  of  our  ancestors."  1  He  could  not 
have  described  better  his  own  wife  and  all  that 
she  was  to  be  in  the  years  to  come.  Her  fame  is 
linked  with  his  as  is  Clara  Schumann's  with  that 
of  the  great  German  musician. 

1  Shakspere  and  his  Forerunners,  i,  99. 


MARY   DAY  LANIER  IN   1873 


CHAPTER  V 

LAWYER    AND    TRAVELER 

UNABLE  to  secure  a  position  in  a  Southern  col 
lege  or  to  make  a  living  by  literary  work,  La- 
nier  decided  at  the  end  of  1868  to  take  up  the 
profession  of  law.  He  was  led  to  do  so  by  the 
earnest  solicitation  of  his  father.  With  his  mind 
once  made  up  in  that  direction,  he  went  to  the 
work  with  characteristic  zeal.  He  displayed  a 
business-like  and  methodical  spirit  which  at  once 
attracted  attention.  On  November  19,  1869,  he 
wrote  to  his  brother,  who  was  urging  him  to  go 
into  the  cotton-mill  business :  "  I  have  a  far  more 
feasible  project,  which  I  have  been  long  incubat 
ing  :  let  us  go  to  Brunswick.  We  know  some 
thing  of  the  law,  and  are  rapidly  knowing  more  ; 
it  is  a  business  which  is  far  better  than  that  of 
any  salaried  officer  could  possibly  be.  ...  It 
is  best  that  you  and  I  make  up  our  minds  imme 
diately  to  be  lawyers,  nothing  but  lawyers,  good 
lawyers,  and  successful  lawyers  ;  and  direct  all 
our  energies  to  this  end.  We  are  too  far  in  life 
to  change  our  course  now  ;  it  would  be  greatly 
disadvantageous  to  both  of  us.  Therefore,  to  the 


100  SIDNEY   LANIER 

law,  Boy.  It  is  your  vocation ;  stick  to  it :  It 
will  presently  reward  you  for  your  devotion." 
The  scheme  did  not  materialize,  however ;  he 
remained  at  Macon  in  the  office  of  Lanier  and 
Anderson.  He  writes  to  Northrup,  who  has 
again  held  out  to  him  a  plan  for  going  to  Ger 
many  :  — 

"  As  for  my  sweet  old  dreams  of  studying  in 
Germany,  eheu  !  here  is  come  a  wife,  and  by'r 
Lady,  a  boy,  a  most  rare-lung'd,  imperious,  world- 
grasping,  blue-eyed,  kingly  Manikin  ; l  and  the 
same  must  have  his  tiring-woman  or  nurse,  mark 
you,  and  his  laces  and  embroideries  and  small  car 
riage,  being  now  half  a  year  old :  so  that,  what  with 
mine  ancient  Money -Cormorants,  the  Butcher 
and  the  Baker  and  the  Tailor,  my  substance  is 
like  to  be  so  pecked  up  that  I  must  stick  fast 
in  Georgia,  unless  litigation  and  my  reputation 
should  take  a  simultaneous  start  and  both  grow 
outrageously.  For,  you  must  know,  these  South 
ern  colleges  are  all  so  poor  that  they  hold  out 
absolutely  no  inducement  in  the  way  of  support 
to  a  professor :  and  so  last  January  I  suddenly 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  wanted  to  make 
some  money  for  my  wife  and  my  baby,  and  in 
continently  betook  me  to  studying  Law  :  wherein 
I  am  now  well  advanced,  and,  D.  V.,  will  be  ad 
mitted  to  the  Bar  in  May  next.  My  advantages 

1  Charles  Day  Lanier.   See  poem,  "  Baby  Charley." 


LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER          101 

are  good,  since  my  Father  and  uncle  (firm  of 
Lanier  and  Anderson)  are  among  the  oldest 
lawyers  in  the  city  and  have  a  large  practice,  into 
which  I  shall  be  quickly  inducted. 

"  I  have  not,  however,  ceased  my  devotion  to 
letters,  which  I  love  better  than  all  things  in  my 
heart  of  hearts  ;  and  have  now  in  the  hands  of 
the  Lit.  Bureau  in  N.  Y.  a  vol.  of  essays.  I  'm 
(or  rather  have  been)  busy,  too,  on  a  long  poem, 
yclept  the  '  Jacquerie,'  on  which  I  had  bestowed 
more  real  work  than  on  any  of  the  frothy  things 
which  I  have  hitherto  sent  out ;  tho'  this  is 
now  necessarily  suspended  until  the  summer 
shall  give  me  a  little  rest  from  the  office  busi 
ness  with  which  I  have  to  support  myself  while 
I  am  studying  law."  1 

Lanier 's  work  as  a  lawyer  was  that  of  the 
office,  as  he  never  practiced  in  the  courts.  To  the 
accuracy  and  fidelity  of  this  work  the  words  of 
his  successor,  Chancellor  Walter  B.  Hill  of  the 
University  of  Georgia,  bear  testimony  :  — 

"  About  1874  or  1875  I  became  associated  as 
partner  with  the  firm  of  Lanier  and  Anderson,  in 
whose  office  Sidney  Lanier  practiced  law  up  to 
the  time  he  left  Macon  [1869-1873]  —I  do  not 
know  whether  he  was  a  partner  in  the  firm  or 
whether  he  merely  used  the  same  office.  At  any 
rate,  it  seems  that  the  greater  part  of  his  work 
1  LippincotC  s  Magazine,  March,  1905. 


102  SIDNEY   LANIER 

consisted  in  the  examination  of  titles.  The  firm 
of  Lanier  and  Anderson  represented  several 
building  and  loan  associations  and  had  a  large 
business  in  this  line  of  work.  To  examine  a  title, 
as  you  know,  requires  a  visit  to  what  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes  calls  '  that  cemetery  of  dead  trans 
actions,'  the  place  for  the  official  registry  of  deeds 
and  other  muniments  of  title,  called  in  Georgia 
the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  Superior  Court. 
One  cannot  imagine  work  that  is  more  dry-as- 
dust  in  its  character  than  going  over  these  records 
for  the  purpose  of  tracing  the  successive  links  in 
a  chain  of  title.  When  I  came  into  the  firm  I 
had  occasion  frequently  to  examine  the  letter 
press  copybook  in  which  Lanier's  '  abstracts  '  or 
reports  upon  title  had  been  copied.  Not  only 
were  the  books  themselves  models  of  neatness, 
but  all  his  work  in  the  examination  of  titles 
showed  the  utmost  thoroughness,  patience,  and 
fidelity.  The  law  of  Georgia  in  regard  to  the 
registration  of  titles  was  by  no  means  perfect  at 
that  time ;  so  imperfect,  indeed,  that  I  have  known 
prominent  lawyers  to  refuse  to  engage  in  the 
work  on  account  of  the  risk  of  error  involved. 
I  remained  a  member  of  the  firm  for  some  time 
afterwards,  but  during  the  whole  period  of  my 
residence  in  Macon  I  never  heard  any  question 
raised  as  to  the  correctness  and  thoroughness  of 
Lanier's  work  in  this  difficult  and  intricate  de- 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          103 

partment  of  practice.  In  going  over  some  of  his 
work  I  have  often  keenly  felt  the  contrast  between 
such  toil  and  that  for  which  Lanier's  genius  fit 
ted  him.  To  find  that  the  poet. spent  many  la 
borious  days  in  such  uninspiring  labor  was  as 
great  an  anomaly  as  it  would  be  to  see  a  foun 
tain  spring  from  a  bed  of  sawdust  and  4  shake 
its  loosened  silver  in  the  sun.'  "  1 

While  engaged  in  the  practice  of  law,  Lanier 
now  and  then  made  public  addresses.  The  most 
important  of  these  was  the  Confederate  Memo 
rial  Address,  April  26,  1870.2  The  spirit  and 
the  language  of  it  are  equally  admirable.  He  who 
had  suffered  all  that  any  man  could  suffer  dur 
ing  the  Civil  War  and  during  the  reconstruction 
period  shows  that  he  has  risen  above  all  bitter 
ness  and  prejudice.  There  is  no  threshing  over 
of  dead  issues.  The  spirit  of  the  address  is  more 
like  that  seen  in  the  letters  of  Robert  E.  Lee 
than  any  other  thing  written  by  Southerners  dur 
ing  this  period.  Lanier  is  not  yet  national  in  his 
point  of  view,  but  he  represents  the  best  attitude 
of  mind  that  could  be  held  by  the  most  liberal 
of  Southerners  at  that  time.  Standing  in  the 
cemetery  at  Macon,  —  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  Southern  States,  —  he  begins  :  "  In  the 
unbroken  silence  of  the  dead  soldierly  forms  that 

1  Letter  to  the  author. 

2  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  p.  94. 


104  SIDNEY   LANIER 

lie  beneath  our  feet ;  in  the  winding  processions 
of  these  stately  trees  ;  in  the  large  tranquillity  of 
this  vast  and  benignant  heaven  that  overspreads 
us ;  in  the  quiet  ripple  of  yonder  patient  river, 
flowing  down  to  his  death  in  the  sea ;  in  the 
manifold  melodies  drawn  from  these  green  leaves 
by  wandering  airs  that  go  like  Troubadours  sing 
ing  in  all  the  lands ;  in  the  many- voiced  memories 
that  flock  into  this  day,  and  fill  it  as  swallows 
fill  the  summer,  —  in  all  these,  there  is  to  me  so 
voluble  an  eloquence  to-day  that  I  cannot  but 
shrink  from  the  harsher  sounds  of  my  own  hu 
man  voice."  Taking  these  as  a  text,  he  comments 
first  on  the  necessity  for  silence  in  an  age  when 
"trade  is  the  most  boisterous  god  of  all  the  false 
gods  under  heaven."  The  clatter  of  factories, 
the  clank  of  mills,  the  groaning  of  forges,  the 
sputtering  and  laboring  of  his  water  power,  are 
all  lost  sight  of  in  contemplating  the  august 
presence  of  the  dead,  who  speak  not.  He  speaks 
next  of  the  stateliness  of  the  trees,  which  suggests 
to  him  the  stateliness  of  the  two  great  heroes  of 
the  Confederacy,  Robert  E.  Lee  and  Stonewall 
Jackson,  —  "  bright,  magnificent  exemplars  of 
stateliness,  —  those  noble  figures  that  arose  and 
moved  in  splendid  procession  across  the  theatre 
of  our  Confederate  war !  "  The  patience  of  the 
river  suggests  the  soldiers  who  walked  their  life  of 
battle,  "  patient  through  heat  and  cold,  through 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          105 

rain  and  drought,  through  bullets  and  diseases, 
through  -hunger  and  nakedness,  through  rigor  of 
discipline  and  laxity  of  morals,  ay,  through  the 
very  shards  and  pits  of  hell,  down  to  the  almost 
inevitable  death  that  awaited  them." 

The  most  significant  passage,  however,  is  his 
appeal  to  the  men  and  women  of  the  South  to 
rise  to  the  plane  of  tranquillity  and  magnanim 
ity  :- 

"  I  spoke  next  of  the  tranquillity  of  the  over- 
spanning  heavens.  This,  too,  is  a  noble  quality 
which  your  Association  tends  to  keep  alive.  Who 
in  all  the  world  needs  tranquillity  more  than  we  ? 
I  know  not  a  deeper  question  in  our  Southern 
life  at  this  present  time,  than  how  we  shall  bear 
our  load  of  wrong  and  injury  with  the  calmness 
and  tranquil  dignity  that  become  men  and  women 
who  would  be  great  in  misfortune ;  and  believe 
me,  I  know  not  where  we  will  draw  deeper  in 
spirations  of  calm  strength  for  this  great  emer 
gency  than  in  this  place  where  we  now  stand,  in 
the  midst  of  departed  heroes  who  fought  against 
these  things  to  death.  Why,  yonder  lies  my 
brave,  brilliant  friend,  Lamar ;  and  yonder,  ge 
nial  Robert  Smith  ;  and  yonder,  generous  Tracy, 
—  gallant  men,  all,  good  knights  and  stainless 
gentlemen.  How  calmly  they  sleep  in  the  midst 
of  it !  Unto  this  calmness  shall  we  come,  at  last. 
If  so,  why  should  we  disquiet  our  souls  for  the 


106  SIDNEY   LANIER 

petty  stings  of  our  conquerors  ?  There  comes  a 
time  when  conqueror  and  conquered  shall  alike 
descend  into  the  grave.  In  that  time,  O  my 
countrymen,  in  that  time  the  conqueror  shall  be 
ashamed  of  his  lash,  and  the  conquered  shall  be 
proud  of  his  calm  endurance  ;  in  that  time  the 
conqueror  shall  hide  his  face,  and  the  conquered 
shall  lift  his  head  with  an  exultation  in  his  tran 
quil  fortitude  which  God  shall  surely  pardon ! 

"  For  the  contemplation  of  this  tranquillity,  my 
friends  of  this  Association,  in  the  name  of  a  land 
stung  half  to  madness,  I  thank  you. 

"  To-day  we  are  here  for  love  and  not  for  hate. 
To-day  we  are  here  for  harinony  and  not  for 
discord.  To-day  we  are  risen  immeasurably 
above  all  vengeance.  To-day,  standing  upon  the 
serene  heights  of  forgiveness,  our  souls  choir 
together  the  enchanting  music  of  harmonious 
Christian  civilization.  To-day  we  will  not  dis 
turb  the  peaceful  slumbers  of  these  sleepers  with 
music  less  sweet  than  the  serenade  of  loving 
remembrances,  breathing  upon  our  hearts  as  the 
winds  of  heaven  breathe  upon  these  swaying 
leaves  above  us." 

Lanier  did  not  abandon  altogether  his  ideal 
of  doing  literary  work.  He  was  much  encour 
aged  at  this  time  by  a  sympathetic  correspondence 
with  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne,  who,  after  the  Civil 


LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER          107 

War,  had  settled  in  a  little  cottage  near  Au 
gusta.  His  beautiful  home  in  Charleston  had 
been  burned  to  the  ground  and  his  large,  hand 
some  library  utterly  lost.  With  heroic  spirit  at 
a  time  when,  as  Lanier  said  of  him,  "  the  war  of 
secession  had  left  the  South  in  a  condition  which 
appeared  to  render  an  exclusively  literary  life 
a  hopeless  impossibility,  he  immured  himself  in 
the  woods  of  Georgia  and  gave  himself  wholly 
to  his  pen."  When  Simms  visited  him  here  in 
1866,  the  poet  had  for  supplies  "  a  box  of  hard 
tack,  two  sides  of  bacon,  and  fourscore,  more  or 
less,  of  smoked  herring,  a  frying-pan  and  a  grid 
iron."  He  and  his  wife  lived  as  simply  as  the 
Hawthornes  did  in  the  Old  Manse.  His  writing 
desk  was  a  carpenter's  work-bench.  He  wrote 
continually  for  the  magazines,  corresponded 
with  the  poets  of  England  and  New  England, 
received  visitors,  with  whom  he  talked  about  the 
old  days  in  Charleston  when  he  and  Timrod  and 
Simms  had  projected  "  Russell's  Magazine,"  and 
held  out  to  young  Southern  writers  the  encour 
agement  of  an  older  brother. 

It  was  this  man  who,  at  a  critical  time  in 
Lanier's  life,  inspired  him  to  believe  that  he 
might  succeed  in  a  literary  career.  "  I  have  had 
constantly  in  mind  the  kindly  help  and  encour 
agement  which  your  cheering  words  used  to 
bring  me  when  I  was  even  more  obscure  than  I 


108  SIDNEY   LANIER 

am  now,"  wrote  the  younger  poet  at  a  later  time. 
He  did  not  have  time,  however,  to  act  on  this 
encouragement.  He  wrote  now  and  then  a  dia 
lect  poem  which  was  printed  in  the  Georgia 
dailies  and  attracted  attention  by  its  humor  and 
its  insight  into  contemporary  life,  and  occasion 
ally  an  exquisite  lyric  like  "  Nirvana."  In  the 
main  he  had  to  say :  — 

"  I  have  not  put  pen  to  paper  in  a  literary 
way  in  a  long  time.  How  I  thirst  to  do  so,  — 
how  I  long  to  sing  a  thousand  various  songs  that 
oppress  me,  unsung,  —  is  inexpressible.  Yet  the 
mere  work  that  brings  me  bread  gives  me  no 
time.  I  know  not,  after  all,  if  this  is  a  sorrow 
ful  thing.  Nobody  likes  my  poems  except  two 
or  three  friends,  —  who  are  themselves  poets, 
and  can  supply  themselves  !  "  And  yet  he  writes, 
"  It  gives  me  great  encouragement  that  you 
think  I  might  succeed  in  the  literary  life ;  for 
I  take  it  that  you  are  in  earnest  in  saying  so,  be 
lieving  that  you  love  Art  with  too  genuine  affec 
tion  to  trifle  with  her  by  bringing  to  her  service, 
through  mere  politeness,  an  unworthy  worker."1 

Hayne  was  impressed  with  Lanier's  intimate 
knowledge  of  Elizabethan  and  older  English  liter 
ature,  as  displayed  in  his  letters  of  this  period. 
He  says :  — 

"  He  had  steeped  his  imagination  from  boy- 

1  Letters,  passim. 


LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER          109 

hood  in  the  writings  of  the  earlier  English  an 
nalists  and  poets, —  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Sir 
Thomas  Mallory,  Gower,  Chaucer,  and  the  whole 
bead-roll  of  such  ancient  English  worthies.  I 
was  of  course  a  little  surprised  during  our  earlier 
epistolary  communion  to  perceive,  not  only  his  un 
usually  thorough  knowledge  of  Chaucer,  for  exam 
ple,  whose  couplets  flowed  as  trippingly  from  his 
pen  as  if  '  The  Canterbury  Tales  '  arid  <  The  Ro- 
maunt  of  the  Rose '  were  his  daily  mental  food, 
but  to  find  him  quoting  as  naturally  and  easily 
from  4  Piers  Plowman '  and  scores  of  the  half- 
obsolete  ballads  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
borders. 

"  He  gloried  in  antiquarian  lore  and  antiqua 
rian  literature.  Hardly  4  Old  Monkbarns  '  him 
self  could  have  pored  over  a  black-letter  volume 
with  greater  enthusiasm.  Especially  he  loved  the 
tales  of  chivalry,  and  thus,  when  the  opportunity 
came,  was  fully  equipped  as  an  interpreter  of 
Froissart  and  '  King 'Arthur  '  for  the  benefit  of 
our  younger  generation  of  students.  With  the 
great  Elizabethans  Lanier  was  equally  familiar. 
Instead  of  skimming  Shakespeare,  he  went  down 
into  his  depths.  Few  have  written  so  subtly 
of  Shakespeare's  mysterious  sonnets.  Through 
all  Lanier's  productions  we  trace  the  influence 
of  his  early  literary  loves  ;  but  nowhere  do  the 
pithy  quaintnesses  of  the  old  bards  and  chron- 


110  SIDNEY   LANIER 

iclers  display  themselves  more  effectively  —  not 
only  in  the  illustrations,  but  through  the  inner 
most  warp  and  woof  of  the  texture  of  his  ideas 
and  his  style  —  than  in  some  of  his  familiar 
epistles."  l 

That  Lanier  kept  in  touch,  too,  with  contem 
porary  literature  is  shown  by  an  acute  criticism 
of  Browning's  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book,"  then 
recently  published :  "  Have  you  seen  Browning's 
*  The  Ring  and  the  Book  ?  '  I  am  confident  that, 
at  the  birth  of  this  man,  among  all  the  good 
fairies  who  showered  him  with  magnificent  en 
dowments,  one  bad  one  —  as  in  the  old  tale  — 
crept  in  by  stealth  and  gave  him  a  constitutional 
twist  i'  the  neck,  whereby  his  windpipe  became, 
and  has  ever  since  remained,  a  marvelous  tor 
tuous  passage.  Out  of  this  glottis-labyrinth  his 
words  won't,  and  can't,  come  straight.  A  hitch 
and  a  sharp  crook  in  every  sentence  bring  you 
up  with  a  shock.  But  what  a  shock  it  is !  Did 
you  ever  see  a  picture  of  'a  lasso,  in  the  act  of 
being  flung  ?  In  a  thousand  coils  and  turns,  in 
extricably  crooked  and  involved  and  whirled,  yet, 
if  you  mark  the  noose  at  the  end,  you  see  that 
it  is  directly  in  front  of  the  bison's  head,  there, 
and  is  bound  to  catch  him !  That  is  the  way 
Robert  Browning  catches  you.  The  first  sixty 
or  seventy  pages  of  'The  Ring  and  the  Book' 
1  Letters,  p.  220. 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          111 

are  altogether  the  most  doleful  reading,  in  point 
either  of  idea  or  of  music,  in  the  English  lan 
guage  ;  and  yet  the  monologue  of  Giuseppe 
Caponsacchi,  that  of  Pompilia  Comparini,  and 
the  two  of  Guido  Franceschini,  are  unapproach 
able,  in  their  kind,  by  any  living  or  dead  poet, 
mejudice.  Here  Browning's  jerkiness  comes  in 
with  inevitable  effect.  You  get  lightning  glimpses 
—  and,  as  one  naturally  expects  from  lightning, 
zigzag  glimpses  —  into  the  intense  night  of  the 
passion  of  these  souls.  It  is  entirely  wonderful 
and  without  precedent.  The  fitful  play  of  Guido's 
lust,  and  scorn,  and  hate,  and  cowardice,  closes 
with  a  master  stroke  :  — 

"  Christ  !  Maria  !  God  !  .  .   . 

Pompilia,  will  you  let  them  murder  me  ? 

"  Pompilia,  mark  you,  is  dead,  by  Guido's  own 
hand ;  deliberately  stabbed,  because  he  hated 
her  purity,  which  all  along  he  has  reviled  and 
mocked  with  the  Devil's  own  malignant  inge 
nuity  of  sarcasm."  * 

On  account  of  ill  health  Lanier  frequently 
had  to  leave  Macon  and  go  to  places  better  suited 
to  his  physical  temperament.  At  Brunswick, 
Georgia,  —  the  scene  of  the  Marsh  poems, —  at 
Alleghany  Springs  in  Virginia,  and  at  Lookout 
Mountain  in  Tennessee,  he  spent  successive  sum 
mers.  In  all  of  these  places  he  reveled  in  the 
1  Letters,  p.  206;  letter  to  Hayne,  April  13,  1870. 


112  SIDNEY   LANIER 

beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  scenery.  His  let 
ters  written  to  his  wife  and  his  father  during 
his  absences  from  Macon  are  evidence  that 
he  was  at  this  time  developing  steadily  in  that 
subtle  appreciation  of  nature  which  was  after 
wards  to  play  such  an  important  part  in  his 
poetry.  In  fact,  the  letters  themselves,  when 
published,  as  they  will  be  some  time,  show  ar 
tistic  growth  when  compared  with  the  writings 
already  noted.  He  was  all  his  life  a  prolific 
letter- writer  —  and  a  great  one.  Writing  from 
Alleghany  Springs,  July  12,  1872,  he  says  to 
his  wife :  — 

"How  necessary  is  it  that  one  should  occa 
sionally  place  oneself  in  the  midst  of  those  more 
striking  forms  of  nature  in  which  God  has 
indulged  His  fantasy !  It  is  very  true  that  the 
flat  land,  the  bare  hillside,  the  muddy  stream 
comes  also  directly  from  the  creative  hand :  but 
these  do  not  bring  one  into  the  sweetness  of  the 
heartier  moods  of  God ;  in  the  midst  of  them 
it  is  as  if  one  were  transacting  the  business  of 
life  with  God:  whereas,  when  one  has  but  to 
lift  one's  eyes  in  order  to  receive  the  exquisite 
shocks  of  thrilling  form  and  color  and  motion 
that  leap  invisibly  from  mountain  and  groves 
and  stream,  then  one  feels  as  if  one  had  sur 
prised  the  Father  in  his  tender,  sportive,  and 
loving  moments. 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          113 

"  To  the  soul  then,  weak  with  the  long  flesh 
fight  and  filled  with  a  sluggish  languor  by  those 
wearisome  disappointments  which  arise  from  the 
constant  contemplation  of  men's  weaknesses,  and 
from  the  constant  back-thrusting  of  one's  con 
sciousness  of  impotence  to  strengthen  them  — 
thou,  with  thy  nimble  fancy,  canst  imagine  what 
ethereal  and  yet  indestructible  essences  of  new 
dignity,  of  new  strength,  of  new  patience,  of 
new  serenity,  of  new  hope,  new  faith,  and  new 
love,  do  continually  flash  out  of  the  gorges,  the 
mountains,  and  the  streams,  into  the  heart,  and 
charge  it,  as  the  lightnings  charge  the  earth, 
with  subtle  and  heavenly  fires. 

"  A  bewildering  sorcery  seems  to  spread  itself 
over  even  those  things  which  are  commonplace. 
The  songs  and  cries  of  birds  acquire  a  strange 
sound  to  me :  I  cannot  understand  the  little 
spontaneous  tongues,  the  quivering  throats,  the 
open  beaks,  the  small  bright  eyes  that  gleam  with 
unknown  emotion,  the  nimble  capricious  heads 
that  twist  this  way  and  that  with  such  bizarre 
unreasonableness. 

"  Nor  do  I  fathom  this  long  unceasing  mono 
tone  of  the  little  shallow  river  that  sings  yonder 
over  the  rocks  in  its  bosom  as  a  mother  crooning 
over  her  children  ;  it  is  but  one  word  the  stream 
utters  :  but  as  when  we  speak  a  well-known  word 
over  and  over  again  until  it  comes  to  have  a 


114  SIDNEY   LANIER 

frightful  mystery  in  it,  so  this  familiar  stream- 
sound  fills  me  with  indescribable  wonder. 

"  Nor  do  I  comprehend  the  eloquence  of  the 
mountains  which  comes  in  a  strange  patois  of 
two  tongues ;  for  the  mountains  speak  at  once 
the  languages  of  repose  and  of  convulsion,  two 
languages  which  have  naught  in  common. 

"  Wondering  therefore,  from  day  to  night, 
with  a  good  wonder  which  directs  attention  not 
to  one's  ignorance  but  to  God's  wisdom,  stricken, 
but  not  exhausted,  by  continual  tranquil  sur 
prises  ;  surrounded  by  a  world  of  enchantments 
which,  so  far  from  being  elusive,  are  the  most 
substantial  of  realties,  —  thou  knowest  that  na 
ture  is  kind  to  me." 

He  went  to  New  York  in  1869,  1870,  and 
1871,  now  on  business  and  now  to  consult  medi 
cal  experts.  In  May,  1869,  we  find  him  trying 
to  make  the  sale  of  some  property  on  which  iron 
was  supposed  to  be.  He  writes  his  father  that 
he  has  been  down  on  Wall  Street  all  day.  There 
is  —  now  as  compared  with  his  1867  visit  —  a 
certain  fascination  for  him  in  the  intense  spirit 
of  hurry  which  displays  itself  on  every  side.  He 
finds  himself  in  competition  with  many  South 
erners  who  were  at  that  time  projecting  similar 
enterprises.  He  is  also  visiting  the  clients  of 
Lanier  and  Anderson,  and  is  anxious  to  extend  the 
firm's  name.  He  is  given  much  social  attention, 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          115 

—  "  teas,  dinners,  calls,  visits,  business  "  con 
sume  his  time.  He  visits  the  superb  villa  of  his 
cousin  on  the  Hudson  near  Poughkeepsie1.  He 
writes,  on  May  15,  that  he  is  beginning  "  to  feel 
entirely  unflurried  in  the  crowd  and  to  go  about 
business  deliberately."  He  is  in  New  York  again 
in  1871,  when  the  Tweed  ring  is  being  exposed, 
and  he  cannot  but  compare  the  situation  there 
with  the  reconstruction  government  that  prevails 
in  his  own  State.  "  Somehow  this  is  n't  a  good 
day  for  thieves,"  he  says.  "  Would  n't  it  be  a 
curious  and  refreshing  phenomenon  if  Tweed, 
Hall,  Bullock,1  and  that  ilk  should  all  continue 
in  the  service  of  the  State  —  only  changing  the 
scene  of  their  labors  from  the  office  to  the  peni 
tentiary  ?  " 

Most  of  all,  however,  Lanier  was  interested  in 
the  music  which  he  heard  on  these  trips  to  the 
metropolis.  He  had  kept  up  his  flute-playing 
while  busy  with  his  law  work,  frequently  playing 
at  charity  concerts  in  Macon  and  other  cities  of 
Georgia.  In  New  York  he  reveled  in  the  singing 
of  Nilsson,  in  religious  music  at  St.  Paul's 
Church,  but  above  all  in  Theodore  Thomas's 
orchestra,  then  just  beginning  its  triumphant 
career.  He  writes,  August  15, 1870  :  "  Ah,  how 
they  have  belied  Wagner!  I  heard  Theodore 
Thomas's  orchestra  play  his  overture  to  '  Tann- 

1  Governor  of  Georgia  during  reconstruction  days. 


116  SIDNEY   LANIER 

hauser.'  The  '  Music  of  the  Future '  is  surely 
thy  music  and  my  music.  Each  harmony  was  a 
chorus  of  pure  aspirations.  The  sequences  flowed 
along,  one  after  another,  as  if  all  the  great  and 
noble  deeds  of  time  had  formed  a  procession  and 
marched  in  review  before  one's  ears  instead  of 
one's  eyes.  These  '  great  and  noble  deeds ' 
were  not  deeds  of  war  and  statesmanship,  but 
majestic  victories  of  inner  struggles  of  a  man. 
This  unbroken  march  of  beautiful-bodied  Tri 
umphs  irresistibly  invites  the  soul  of  a  man  to 
create  other  processions  like  it.  I  would  I  might 
lead  a  so  magnificent  file  of  glories  into 
heaven!"1 

And  again,  in  1871 :  "  And  to-night  I  come 
out  of  what  might  have  been  heaven.  .  .  . 

"  'T  was  opening  night  of  Theodore  Thomas's 
orchestra,  at  Central  Park  Garden,  and  I  could 
not  resist  the  temptation  to  go  and  bathe  in  the 
sweet  amber  seas  of  the  music  of  this  fine  or 
chestra,  and  so  I  went,  and  tugged  me  through  a 
vast  crowd,  and,  after  standing  some  while,  found 
a  seat,  and  the  baton  tapped  and  waved,  and  I 
plunged  into  the  sea,  and  lay  and  floated.  Ah ! 
the  dear  flutes  and  oboes  and  horns  drifted  me 
hither  and  thither,  and  the  great  violins  and  small 
violins  swayed  me  upon  waves,  and  overflowed 
me  with  strong  lavations,  and  sprinkled  glisten- 

1  Letters,  p.  68. 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          117 

ing  foam  in  my  face,  and  in  among  the  clarinetti, 
as  among  waving  water-lilies  with  flexile  stems, 
I  pushed  my  easy  way,  and  so,  even  lying  in  the 
music-waters,  I  floated  and  flowed,  my  soul  ut 
terly  bent  and  prostrate."  1 

In  November,  1872,  Lanier  went  to  San  An 
tonio  in  quest  of  health.  In  letters  to  his  father 
giving  an  account  of  his  trip  from  New  Orleans 
to  Galveston  and  thence  to  Austin,  he  shows 
keen  insight  into  the  life  of  that  State.  He 
sketches  many  types  of  character  and  scenes  — 
sketches  that  show  at  once  his  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  his  ability  as  a  reporter.  It 
may  be  said  here  that  Lanier  always  took  an 
interest  in  the  passing  show,  —  he  was  not  a  de 
tached  dreamer.  He  arrived  at  San  Antonio  in 
November.  On  account  of  his  ill  health  he  could 
write  but  few  letters,  although  he  is  "  fairly 
reeking  with  all  manner  of  quips  and  quiddities 
which  I  yearn  to  spread  for  the  delectation  of 
such  a  partial  set  of  people  as  a  home  set  always 
is."  He  writes  to  his  sister  :  "  To-day  has  been 
as  lovely  as  any  day  can  hope  to  be  this  side  of 
Millennium  ;  and  I  have  been  out  strolling  morn 
ing  and  afternoon,  far  and  wide,  ever  tempted 
onward  by  the  delicious  buoyant  balm  in  the  air 
and  pleasantly  surprised  in  finding  what  a  dis 
tance  I  could  accomplish  without  over  fatigue." 

1  Letters,  p.  70. 


118  SIDNEY   LANIER 

He  rode  horseback  a  great  deal  —  a  form  of 
exercise  he  was  especially  fond  of  all  his  life. 

In  a  letter  to  his  father  he  refers  to  some  work 
he  is  doing  in  the  library :  "  I  have  also  man 
aged  to  advance  very  largely  my  conceptions  of 
the  Jacquerie  through  a  history  which  I  secured 
from  the  Library  of  the  Alamo  Literary  Society, 
—  a  flourishing  institution  here  which  is  now 
building  a  hall  to  cost  some  thirteen  thousand 
dollars,  and  of  which  I  have  become  a  literary 
member."  He  has  been  reading  Michelet's  "  His 
tory  of  France  "  which  "  gives  him  the  essence  of 
an  old  book  which  he  had  despaired  of  ever  see 
ing,  but  which  is  the  only  authority  extant,  — 
save  Froissart  and  a  few  others  equally  unreli 
able  ;  it  is  the  chronicle  of  the  '  Continuator  of 
Guillaurne  de  Nangis.' "  With  Olmsted's  book 
of  travels  as  a  model,  he  planned  a  series  of 
articles  for  a  New  York  paper. 

The  only  result,  however,  from  these  plans 
was  a  picturesque  sketch  of  San  Antonio,1  after 
wards  published  in  the  "  Southern  Magazine." 
This  sketch  is  at  once  a  history  of  San  Antonio 
and  a  description  of  the  scenery  and  the  people 
of  that  quaint  city.  "  Over  all  the  round  of  as 
pects  in  which  a  thoughtful  mind  may  view  a  city," 
he  says  in  a  typical  passage,  "  it  bristles  with  strik 
ing  idiosyncrasies  and  bizarre  contrasts.  Its  his- 
1  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  p.  34. 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          119 

tory,  population,  climate,  location,  architecture, 
soil,  water,  customs,  costumes,  horses,  cattle,  all 
attract  the  stranger's  attention,  either  by  force 
of  intrinsic  singularity  or  of  odd  juxtapositions. 
It  was  a  puling  infant  for  a  century  and  a  quar 
ter,  yet  has  grown  to  a  pretty  vigorous  youth 
in  a  quarter  of  a  century;  its  inhabitants  are 
so  varied  that  the  4  go  slow '  directions  over  its 
bridges  are  printed  in  three  languages,  and  the 
religious  services  in  its  churches  held  in  four ; 
the  thermometer,  the  barometer,  the  vane,  the 
hygrometer,  oscillate  so  rapidly,  so  frequently,  so 
lawlessly,  and  through  so  wide  a  meteorological 
range,  that  the  climate  is  simply  indescribable, 
yet  it  is  a  growing  resort  for  consumptives ;  it 
stands  with  all  its  gay  prosperity  just  in  the  edge 
of  a  lonesome,  untilled  belt  of  land  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  wide,  like  Mardi  Gras  on  the  aus 
tere  brink  of  Lent ;  it  has  no  Sunday  laws,  and 
that  day  finds  its  bar-rooms  and  billiard-saloons 
as   freely   open   and    as    fully    attended  as   its 
churches ;  its  buildings,  ranging  from  the  Mexican 
jacal  to  the  San  Fernando  Cathedral,  represent 
all  the  progressive  stages  of  man's  architectural 
progress  in  edifices  of  mud,  of  wood,  of  stone,  of 
iron,  and  of  sundry  combinations  of  those  mate 
rials  ;  its  soil  is  in  wet  weather  an  inky-black 
cement,  but  in  dry  a  floury- white  powder ;  it  is 
built  along  both  banks  of  two  limpid  streams, 


120  SIDNEY   LANIER 

yet  it  drinks  rain  water  collected  in  cisterns ;  its 
horses  and  mules  are  from  Lilliput,  while  its 
oxen  are  from  Brobdingnag."  In  the  same  vivid 
style  he  sketches  the  various  characteristics  of 
the  city  and  its  people.  His  account  of  a  Texas 
"  norther,"  his  descriptions  of  the  San  Fernando 
Cathedral  and  of  the  Mission  San  Jose  de 
Aquayo  are  especially  good. 

It  was  on  this  visit  to  San  Antonio  that  Lanier 
resolved  finally  to  devote  himself  to  an  artist's 
career.  He  came  in  contact  with  some  of  the 
German  musicians  of  the  city  and  played  before 
the  Maennerchor,  which  received  his  flute-play 
ing  with  enthusiastic  applause. 

SAN  ANTONIO,  TEX.,  January  30,  1873. 
Last  night  at  eight  o'clock  came  Mr.  Scheide- 
mantel,  a  genuine  lover  of  music  and  a  fine  pian 
ist,  to  take  me  to  the  Maennerchor,  which  meets 
every  Wednesday  night  for  practice.  Quickly 
we  came  to  a  hall,  one  end  of  which  was  occupied 
by  a  minute  stage  with  appurtenances,  and  a 
piano ;  and  in  the  middle  thereof  a  long  table, 
at  which  each  singer  sat  down  as  he  came  in. 
Presently,  seventeen  Germans  were  seated  at  the 
singing-table,  long-necked  bottles  of  Rhine-wine 
were  opened  and  tasted,  great  pipes  and  cigars 
were  all  afire ;  the  leader,  Herr  Thielepape,  - 
an  old  man  with  long,  white  beard  and  mustache, 


LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER          121 

formerly  mayor  of  the  city,  —  rapped  his  tuning- 
fork  vigorously,  gave  the  chords  by  rapid  arpeg 
gios  of  his  voice  (a  wonderful,  wild,  high  tenor, 
such  as  thou  wouldst  dream  that  the  old  Welsh 
harpers  had,  wherewith  to  sing  songs  that  would 
cut  against  the  fierce  sea-blasts),  and  off  they 
all  swung  into  such  a  noble,  noble  old  German 
full-voiced  lied,  that  imperious  tears  rushed  into 
my  eyes,  and  I  could  scarce  restrain  myself 
from  running  and  kissing  each  one  in  turn  and 
from  howling  dolefully  the  while.  And  so  ... 
I  all  the  time  worshiping  .  .  .  with  these  great 
chords  ...  we  drove  through  the  evening  until 
twelve  o'clock,  absorbing  enormous  quantities  of 
Rhine-wine  and  beer,  whereof  I  imbibed  my  full 
share.  After  the  second  song  I  was  called  on  to 
play,  and  lifted  my  poor  old  flute  in  air  with 
tumultuous,  beating  heart ;  for  I  had  no  confi 
dence  in  that  or  in  myself.  But,  du  Himmel ! 
Thou  shouldst  have  heard  mine  old  love  warble 
herself  forth.  To  my  utter  astonishment,  I  was 
perfect  master  of  the  instrument.  Is  not  this 
most  strange  ?  Thou  knowest  I  had  never  learned 
it ;  and  thou  rememberest  what  a  poor  muddle  I 
made  at  Marietta  in  playing  difficult  passages  ; 
and  I  certainly  have  not  practiced  ;  and  yet  there 
I  commanded  and  the  blessed  notes  obeyed  me, 
and  when  I  had  finished,  amid  a  storm  of  ap 
plause,  Herr  Thielepape  arose  and  ran  to  me 


122  SIDNEY   LANIER 

and  grasped  my  hand,  and  declared  that  he  hat 
never  heert  de  flude  accompany  itself  pefore  1  I 
played  once  more  during  the  evening,  and  ended 
with  even  more  rapturous  bravos  than  before, 
Mr.  Scheidemantel  grasping  my  hand  this  time, 
and  thanking  me  very  earnestly. 

My  heart,  which  was  hurt  greatly  when  I  went 
into  the  music-room,  came  forth  from  the  holy 
bath  of  concords  greatly  refreshed,  strengthened, 
and  quieted,  and  so  remaineth  to-day.  I  also  feel 
better  than  in  a  long  time  before.1 

Again  he  played  for  "an  elegant  -  looking 
company  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  "  in  a  private 
home.  "  I  had  not  played  three  seconds,"  he  says, 
"  before  a  profound  silence  reigned  among  the 
people,  seeing  which,  and  dreaming  wildly,  and 
feeling  somehow  in  an  eerie  and  elfish,  and  half- 
uncanny  mood,  I  flew  off  into  all  manner  of 
trills,  and  laments,  and  cadenza-monstrosities  for 
a  long  time,  but  finally  floated  down  into  4  La 
Melancolie,'  which  melted  itself  forth  with  such 
eloquent  lamenting  that  it  almost  brought  my 
tears  —  and,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  when  I 
allowed  the  last  note  to  die,  a  simultaneous  cry 
of  pleasure  broke  forth  from  men  and  women 
that  almost  amounted  to  a  shout."  2  Two  weeks 
later  he  wrote  :  "  I  have  writ  the  most  beautiful 
piece,  'Field-larks  and  Blackbirds,'  wherein  I 
1  Letters,  p.  71.  2  Letters,  p.  73. 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          123 

have  mirrored  Mr.  Field-lark's  pretty  eloquence 
so  that  I  doubt  he  would  know  the  difference 
betwixt  the  flute  and  his  own  voice."1 

Inspired  by  the  sympathy  of  people  in  whose 
judgment  he  had  confidence,  and  impelled  by  his 
own  genius  asserting  itself,  and  realizing  that 
his  hold  upon  life  was  but  slight,  he  went  from 
San  Antonio  in  April,  1873,  with  the  fixed  pur 
pose  to  give  the  remainder  of  his  life  to  music 
and  poetry.  The  resolution  is  all  the  more  sig 
nificant  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  year 
1873  was  one  of  financial  distress,  especially  in 
the  South.  "  It  was  then,"  says  Joel  Chandler 
Harris,  "  that  the  effects  of  war  and  waste  were 
fully  felt,  and  then  that  the  stoutest  heart  was 
tried,  labor  was  restless  and  hard  to  control,  the 
planter  was  out  of  funds  and  interest  was  high, 
.  .  .  the  farmers  were  almost  at  the  point  of 
desperation." 

The  formation  of  this  resolution  to  devote 
himself  to  artistic  work  marks  an  epoch  in 
Lanier's  life  so  important  as  to  call  for  further 
comment.  For  twelve  years  he  had  been  de 
flected  out  of  his  true  orbit.  For  seven  years  he 
had  given  his  time  and  talent  to  pursuits  which 
he  did  not  cherish  —  writing  only  now  and  then 
with  his  left  hand.  Everything  had  been  against 
him.  To  preserve  unspotted  the  ideal  of  his 
1  Letters,  p.  47. 


124  SIDNEY   LANIER 

youth  —  through  all  the  changes  and  struggles 
of  these  years  —  and  now  to  give  himself  to  it 
meant  heroism  of  a  rare  type.  It  meant  that  he 
must  seem  disobedient  to  a  father  with  whom  his 
relation  had  been  peculiarly  intimate,  that  he 
would  go  in  the  face  of  the  opinion  of  friends 
and  relatives,  and  that  he  must  for  a  while  at 
least  leave  behind  his  family,  whom  he  loved  with 
an  unparalleled  affection.  He  was  to  enter  upon 
a  career  the  future  of  which  was  not  certain.  In 
spite  of  all  these  obstacles,  he  deliberately  made 
up  his  mind  to  give  the  remainder  of  his  life  to 
the  work  that  he  loved.  Once  again,  after  he  had 
settled  down  in  Baltimore,  his  father  made  a 
determined  effort  to  induce  him  to  change  his 
mind,  but  to  no  avail.  Lanier's  answer  to  his 
father's  letter,  written  November  29,  1873,  is 
really  his  declaration  of  independence  —  the  vow 
of  consecration :  — 

"  I  have  given  your  last  letter  the  fullest  and 
most  careful  consideration.  After  doing  so  I  feel 
sure  that  Macon  is  not  the  place  for  me.  If  you 
could  taste  the  delicious  crystalline  air,  and  the 
champagne  breeze  that  I  've  just  been  rushing 
about  in,  I  am  equally  sure  that  in  point  of 
climate  you  would  agree  with  me  that  my  chance 
for  life  is  ten  times  as  great  here  as  in  Macon. 
Then,  as  to  business,  why  should  I,  nay,  how 
can  I,  settle  myself  down  to  be  a  third-rate 


LAWYER  AND   TRAVELER          125 

struggling  lawyer  for  the  balance  of  my  little 
life,  as  long  as  there  is  a  certainty  almost  abso 
lute  that  I  can  do  some  other  thing  so  much 
better?    Several  persons,  from  whose  judgment 
in  such  matters  there  can  be  no  appeal,  have 
told  me,  for  instance,  that  I  am   the  greatest 
flute-player  in  the  world ;  and  several  others,  of 
equally  authoritative  judgment,  have  given  me 
an  almost  equal  encouragement  to  work  with  my 
pen.    (Of  course  I  protest  against  the  necessity 
which  makes  me  write  such  things  about  myself. 
I  only  do  so  because  I  so  appreciate  the  love  and 
tenderness  which  prompt  you  to  desire  me  with 
you  that  I  will  make  the  fullest  explanation  pos 
sible  of  my  course,  out  of  reciprocal  honor  and 
respect  for  the  motives  which  lead  you  to  think 
differently  from   me.)    My  dear   father,  think 
how,  for  twenty  years,  through  poverty,  through 
pain,    through     weariness,     through     sickness, 
through  the  uncongenial  atmosphere  of  a  farcical 
college  and  of  a  bare  army  and  then  of  an  exact 
ing  business  life,  through  all  the  discouragement 
of  being  wholly  unacquainted  with  literary  peo 
ple  and  literary  ways,  —  I  say,  think  how,  in 
spite  of  all  these  depressing  circumstances,  and 
of  a  thousand  more  which  I  could  enumerate, 
these  two  figures  of  music  and  of  poetry  have 
steadily  kept  in  my  heart  so  that  I  could  not 
banish  them.    Does  it  not  seem  to  you  as  to 


126  SIDNEY   LANIER 

me,  that  I  begin  to  have  the  right  to  enroll  my 
self  among  the  devotees  of  these  two  sublime 
arts,  after  having  followed  them  so  long  and  so 
humbly,  and  through  so  much  bitterness?  "  1 

The  letter  just  quoted  needs  to  be  read  with 
caution.  It  sets  in  too  sharp  antagonism  his 
life  up  to  this  point  and  that  of  his  later  years. 
Previous  chapters  of  this  book  have  been  written 
in  vain  if  they  have  not  revealed  the  fact  that 
Lanier  was  a  much  more  highly  developed  man 
when  he  left  Georgia  than  the  letter  would  indi 
cate.  He  wrote  it  in  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm 
at  finding  himself  among  artists.  But  it  is  mis 
leading.  For  instance,  he  speaks  of  the  "  farcical 
college ;  "  yet  in  his  last  days,  when  he  saw  his 
life  in  its  proper  perspective,  he  said  that  he 
owed  to  Dr.  Woodrow  the  strongest  and  most 
valuable  stimulus  of  his  early  life.  He  was  not  a 
raw  provincial ;  he  had  traveled  extensively,  had 
been  associated  with  people  of  culture,  if  not  of 
letters,  and  he  had  read  widely  and  wisely.  His 
inheritance  from  Southern  people,  —  their  tem 
perament  and  their  civilization,  —  and  his  in 
debtedness  to  Southern  scenery  will  be  the  more 
apparent  in  later  chapters  of  this  book.  All  the 
while  his  genius  had  been  steadily  growing. 
When  the  time  came  he  was  a  prepared  man  — 

1  Quoted  by  William  Hayes  Ward  in  his  Introduction  to 
Lanier's  Poems. 


LAWYER  AND  TRAVELER          127 

ready  to  seize   with  avidity  every   opportunity 
that  presented  itself. 

Furthermore,  the  very  struggle  he  had  to  main 
tain  his  ideal,  and  it  will  not  do  to  minimize  this 
struggle,  had  strengthened  and  enlarged  his  soul. 
One  may  as  well  lament  Milton's  absorption  in 
the  conflicts  of  his  country  as  Lanier's  partici 
pation  in  the  war  and  in  the  stirring  events  of 
reconstruction.  After  the  fortitude  and  endur 
ance  manifested  in  this  period  of  his  life,  his 
later  sufferings  were  the  more  easily  borne.  One 
of  his  favorite  theories  was  that  antagonism  or 
opposition  either  in  art  or  morals  is  to  be  wel 
comed,  for  out  of  it  comes  a  finer  art  and  a 
larger  manhood.  He  developed  somewhat  at 
length  this  theory  in  his  admirable  study  of 
Shakespeare's  growth.  In  a  passage  evidently 
autobiographical  he  traces  Shakespeare's  progress 
in  the  three  periods  of  his  life,  the  Dream  Period, 
the  Real  or  Harnlet  Period,  and  the  Ideal  Period. 
Lanier,  too,  passed  through  his  Dream  Period,  — 
the  college  days  and  the  early  years  of  the  war. 
He  passed  through  his  Hamlet  Period  —  the 
years  from  1865  to  1873 — years  in  which  he 
felt  the  shock  of  the  real,  the  twist  and  cross  of 
life.  There  had  been  suffering  from  poverty, 
drudgery,  and  disease  ;  there  had  been  also  some 
thing  of  the  storm  and  stress  of  religious  and 
philosophic  doubt.  With  the  beginning  of  his 


128  SIDNEY   LANIER 

artistic  life  he  passes  into  his  Ideal  Period,  when 
by  reason  of  the  terrific  shock  of  the  real  he  was 
able  to  realize  "  a  new  and  immortally  fine  re 
construction  of  his  youth."  He  was  to  know  what 
suffering  meant  in  the  future ;  but  the  serenity 
and  joy  of  his  life  from  this  point  are  apparent 
to  all  who  may  study  it. 

Of  fret,  of  dark,  of  thorn,  of  chill, 

Complain  no  more ;  for  these,  0  heart, 

Direct  the  random  of  the  will 

As  rhymes  direct  the  rage  of  art. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A    MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE 

WITH  his  purpose  firmly  fixed  in  his  mind  he 
started  for  New  York,  which  was  then  fast  be 
coming  the  musical  and  literary  centre  of  the 
country.  For  three  months  and  more  he  gave  him 
self  unstintedly  to  the  work  of  perfecting  himself 
in  playing  the  flute,  and  attended  regularly  the 
great  concerts  then  being  given  by  Theodore 
Thomas.  It  was  an  opportune  time.  The  day  of 
the  Italian  opera,  for  which  Lanier  did  not  care, 
was  past,  and  orchestral  music  was  beginning  its 
triumphant  career  in  this  country.  These  were 
months,  then,  of  education  in  the  very  music  for 
which  Lanier  had  yearned.  He  at  once  attracted 
musical  critics  and  made  a  stir  in  some  of  the 
churches  and  concert-rooms  of  the  city.  He  had 
brought  along  with  him  two  of  his  own  compo 
sitions,  "  Swamp  Robin"  and  "Blackbirds ; "  and 
there  were  some  who  did  not  hesitate  to  pro 
phesy  a  brilliant  career  for  him  as  "  the  greatest 
flute-player  in  the  world."  Lanier  did  not  rely 
on  inspiration,  however,  nor  was  he  satisfied  with 
the  applause  of  popular  audiences  ;  he  knew  that 


130  SIDNEY   LANIER 

his  course  must  be  one  of  "  straightforward  be 
havior  and  hard  work  and  steady  improvement." 
He  would  be  satisfied  only  with  the  judgment 
of  Thomas  or  Dr.  Leopold  Damrosch,  then  con 
ductor  of  the  Philharmonic  Society. 

On  his  way  to  New  York  he  had  stopped  at 
Baltimore,  and  on  the  advice  of  his  friend  Henry 
Wysham  had  played  for  Asger  Hamerik,  who 
was  at  that  time  making  efforts  to  have  the  Pea- 
body  Institute  establish  an  orchestra.  Hamerik 
was  so  attracted  by  Lanier's  playing,  both  of 
masterpieces  and  of  his  own  compositions,  that 
he  invited  him  to  become  first  flute  in  the  pro 
spective  orchestra.  With  even  this  promise  in 
view,  Lanier  had  written  to  his  wife:  "It  is 
therefore  a  possibility  .  .  .  that  I  may  be  first 
flute  in  the  Peabody  Orchestra,  on  a  salary  of 
$120  a  month,  which,  with  five  flute  scholars, 
would  grow  to  $200  a  month,  and  so  ...  we 
might  dwell  in  the  beautiful  city,  among  the 
great  libraries,  and  midst  of  the  music,  the  re 
ligion,  and  the  art  that  we  love  —  and  I  could 
write  my  books  and  be  the  man  I  wish  to  be."  1 
Hamerik  did  succeed  in  getting  the  orchestra 
established  and  Lanier  accepted  the  position  — 
for  far  less  money,  however.  Lanier  settled  in 
Baltimore,  in  December,  and  at  once  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  patrons  of  the  orchestra.  In  the 

1  Letters,  p.  75. 


A  MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       131 

Baltimore  "  Sun  "  of  December  8,  1873,  his 
playing  was  mentioned  as  one  of  the  features 
of  the  opening  symphony  concert.  In  the  same 
paper  of  January  25  occurs  this  note  :  "  Lanier 
and  Stubbs  could  not  have  acquitted  themselves 
better,  nor  done  more  justice  to  their  very  diffi 
cult  parts."  And  so  throughout  the  winter  there 
is  contemporary  evidence  that  this  "raw  pro 
vincial,  without  practice  and  guiltless  of  instruc 
tion,"  was  holding  his  own  with  the  finely  trained 
Germans  and  Danes  of  Hamerik's  Orchestra. 

The  fact  is,  Lanier  was  a  musical  genius.  In 
playing  the  flute  he  combined  deftness  of  hand 
and  quick  intuitiveness  of  soul.  The  director  of 
the  Peabody  Orchestra,  who  had  been  a  pupil  of 
Von  Biilow,  and  was  a  composer  of  distinction, 
has  left  the  most  authoritative  account  of  Lanier 
as  a  performer :  — 

"  To  him  as  a  child  in  his  cradle  Music  was 
given,  the  heavenly  gift  to  feel  and  to  express 
himself  in  tones.  His  human  nature  was  like  an 
enchanted  instrument,  a  magic  flute,  or  the  lyre 
of  Apollo,  needing  but  a  breath  or  a  touch  to  send 
its  beauty  out  into  the  world.  It  was  indeed  ir 
resistible  that  he  should  turn  with  those  poetical 
feelings  which  transcend  language  to  the  pene 
trating  gentleness  of  the  flute,  or  the  infinite 
passion  of  the  violin  ;  for  there  was  an  agreement, 
a  spiritual  correspondence  between  his  nature 


132  SIDNEY  LANIER 

and  theirs,  so  that  they  mutually  absorbed  and 
expressed  each  other.  In  his  hands  the  flute  no 
longer  remained  a  mere  material  instrument,  but 
was  transformed  into  a  voice  that  set  heavenly 
harmonies  into  vibration.  Its  tones  developed 
colors,  warmth,  and  a  low  sweetness  of  unspeak 
able  poetry  ;  they  were  not  only  true  and  pure, 
but  poetic,  allegoric  as  it  were,  suggestive  of  the 
depths  and  heights  of  being  and  of  the  delights 
which  the  earthly  ear  never  hears  and  the  earthly 
eye  never  sees.  No  doubt  his  firm  faith  in  these 
lofty  idealities  gave  him  the  power  to  present 
them  to  our  imaginations,  and  thus  by  the  aid  of 
the  higher  language  of  Music  to  inspire  others 
with  that  sense  of  beauty  in  which  he  constantly 
dwelt.  His  conception  of  music  was  not  reached 
by  an  analytic  study  of  note  by  note,  but  was  in 
tuitive  and  spontaneous  ;  like  a  woman's  reason  : 
he  felt  it  so,  because  he  felt  it  so,  and  his  delicate 
perception  required  no  more  logical  form  of  rea 
soning.  His  playing  appealed  alike  to  the  musi 
cally  learned  and  to  the  unlearned  — for  he  would 
magnetize  the  listener  ;  but  the  artist  felt  in  his 
performance  the  superiority  of  the  momentary 
living  inspiration  to  all  the  rules  and  shifts  of 
mere  technical  scholarship.  His  art  was  not  only 
the  art  of  art,  but  an  art  above  art.  I  will  never 
forget  the  impression  he  made  on  me  when  he 
played  the  flute  concerta  of  Emil  Hartmann  at 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       133 

a  Peabody  symphony  concert,  in  1878,  —  his  tall, 
handsome,  manly  presence,  his  flute  breathing 
noble  sorrows,  noble  joys,  the  orchestra  softly  re 
sponding.  The  audience  was  spellbound.  Such 
distinction,  such  refinement!  He  stood,  the 
master,  the  genius  !  "  1 

He  made  the  same  impression  on  every  other 
artist  he  ever  played  for.  Badger  called  his  flute- 
playing  "  astonishing ;  "  Wehner,  the  first  flute 
in  Thomas's  Orchestra,  sought  every  opportunity 
to  play  with  him.  Theodore  Thomas  planned  to 
have  him  in  his  orchestra  at  the  time  when 
Lanier's  health  failed  in  1876  ;  Dr.  Damrosch 
said  he  played  "  Wind-Song  "  like  an  artist,  — 
that  "  he  was  greatly  astonished  and  pleased  with 
the  poetry  of  the  piece  and  the  enthusiasm  of  its 
rendering." 

His  own  compositions,  too,  appealed  to  men. 
At  times  the  "  fury  of  creation  "  was  upon  him. 
During  the  first  winter  in  Baltimore  he  wrote  a 
midge  dance,  the  origin  of  which  he  thus  gives 
in  a  letter  to  his  wife  :  "  I  am  copying  off  —  in 
order  to  try  the  publishers  therewith —  a  4Danse 
des  Moucherons '  (midge  dance),  which  I  have 
written  for  flute  and  piano,  and  which  I  think 
enough  of  to  let  go  forward  as  Op.  1.  Dost  thou 
remember  one  morning  last  summer,  Charley  and 
I  were  walking  in  the  upper  part  of  the  yard, 

1  Quoted  in  Ward's  Introduction  to  Poems. 


134  SIDNEY   LANIER 

before  breakfast,  and  saw  a  swarm  of  gnats,  of 
whose  strange  evolutions  we  did  relate  to  thee  a 
marvelous  tale  ?  I  have  put  the  grave  oaks,  the 
quiet  shade,  the  sudden  sunlight,  the  fantastic, 
contrariwise,  and  ever-shifting  midge  movements, 
the  sweet  hills  afar  off, ...  all  in  the  piece, 
and  thus  /  like  it ;  but  I  know  not  if  others  will, 
I  have  not  played  it  for  anybody.  " * 

During  this  winter  and  the  succeeding  one 
Lanier  gave  almost  his  entire  time  to  music.  He 
practiced  assiduously,  took  every  opportunity  to 
play  with  the  best  musicians,  —  both  those  of 
his  own  orchestra  and  of  Theodore  Thomas's,  — 
and  often  spent  evenings  with  three  or  four  of 
the  choicest  spirits  he  could  command.  Hamerik 
was  of  special  inspiration  to  him,  bringing  to 
him  as  he  did  much  of  the  spirit  of  music  that 
prevailed  in  German  cities.  Lanier  studied  the 
technique  of  the  flute,  mastering  his  new  silver 
Boehm,  which  "  begins  to  feel  me,"  he  writes. 
"  How  much  I  have  learned  in  the  last  two 
months !  "  he  exclaims.  "  I  am  not  yet  an  art 
ist,  though,  on  the  flute.  The  technique  of  the 
instrument  has  many  depths  which  I  had  not 
thought  of  before,  and  I  would  not  call  myself 
a  virtuoso  within  a  year."  He  suffers  agony 
because  he  does  not  attain  a  point  in  harmony 
which  the  audience  did  not  notice.  Writing  of 
1  Letters,  p.  98. 


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A   MUSICIAN   IN    BALTIMORE       135 

the  temptation  of  flute  soloists,  he  once  said  : 
"  They  have  rarely  been  able  to  resist  the  fatal 
facility  of  the  instrument,  and  have  usually  ad 
dressed  themselves  to  winning  the  applause  of  con 
cert  audiences  by  the  execution  of  those  brilliant 
but  utterly  trifling  and  inane  variations  which 
constitute  the  great  body  of  existing  solos  for 
the  flute."  *  He  fretted  because  "  the  flute  had 
been  the  black  beast  in  the  orchestra."  With 
his  mastery  of  its  technique  and  his  own  marvel 
ous  ability  to  bring  new  results  from  it,  he  looked 
forward  to  the  time  when  it  would  have  a  far 
more  important  place  therein. 

Lanier  played  not  only  for  the  Peabody 
Orchestra,  but  for  the  Germania  Mannerchor 
Orchestra,  —  one  of  the  many  companies  of 
Germans  who  did  so  much  to  develop  music  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  —  the  Concordia 
Theatre,  charity  concerts,  churches,  and  in  pri 
vate  homes.  He  was  very  popular  in  Baltimore. 
Most  of  the  musicians  were  Germans,  but  Lanier 
was  an  American  and  a  Southerner,  who  had 
graces  of  manner  and  goodness  of  soul.  He  was 
a  close  friend  of  the  Baltimore  musicians,  such 
as  Madame  Falk-Auerbach,  a  pupil  of  Kossini's 
and  a  teacher  in  the  Conservatory  of  Music,  "  a 
woman  who  plays  Beethoven  with  the  large  con 
ception  of  a  man,  and  yet  nurses  her  children  all 
1  Music  and  Poetry,  p.  38. 


138  SIDNEY   LANIER 

lecture  on  the  same,  with  special  reference  to  the 
function  performed  by  each  instrument,  and  in 
the  formation  of  harmonious  tonal  color."  1 

While  Lanier  was  giving  his  time  to  the  per 
fection  of  his  flute-playing  and  to  the  study  of 
the  orchestra,  he  became  interested  in  the  sci 
ence  of  music.  Helmholtz's  recent  discoveries  in 
acoustics  inspired  him  to  make  research  in  that 
direction.  He  ransacked  the  Peabody  Library 
for  books  on  the  subject,  many  of  them  yet  not 
unpacked. 

While  few  people  ever  appreciated  more  the 
art  of  music  and  its  spiritual  message  to  men, 
he  realized  that  there  was  a  science  of  music  as 
well,  "  embodying  a  great  number  of  classified 
facts,  and  presenting  a  great  number  of  scientific 
laws  which  are  as  thoroughly  recognized  among 
musicians  as  are  the  laws  of  any  other  sciences 
among  their  professors.  There  is  a  science  of 
harmony,  a  science  of  composition,  a  science  of 
orchestration,  a  science  of  performance  upon 
stringed  instruments,  a  science  of  performance 
upon  wind  instruments,  a  science  of  vocalization ; 
not  a  branch  of  the  art  of  music  but  has  its  own 
analogous  body  of  classified  facts  and  general 
laws.  Music  is  so  much  a  science  that  a  man 
may  be  a  thorough  musician  who  has  never 
written  a  tune  and  who  cannot  play  upon  any 

1  Letter  from  Mr.  F.  H.  Gottlieb  to  the  author. 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       139 

instrument." l  Some  of  these  investigations 
he  afterwards  used  to  good  effect  in  his  "  Sci 
ence  of  English  Verse." 

Furthermore,  Lanier  became  interested  in  the 
history  of  music.  In  his  valuable  monograph  on 
"  Music  in  Shakespeare's  Time " 2  he  shows 
a  minute  knowledge  of  Elizabethan  music,  — 
madrigals,  dances,  catches,  and  other  forms  of 
instrumental  and  vocal  music.  He  took  great 
delight  in  following  out  through  Shakespeare's 
plays  the  dramatist's  knowledge  and  appreci 
ation  of  the  art  of  music.  Indeed,  all  the 
people  of  that  time  were  "  enthusiastic  lovers  of 
the  art.  There  were  professorships  of  music  in 
the  universities,  and  multitudes  of  teachers  of  it 
among  the  people.  The  monarch,  the  lord,  the 
gentleman,  the  merchant,  the  artisan,  the  rustic 
clown,  all  ranks  and  conditions  of  society,  from 
highest  to  lowest,  cultivated  the  practice  of  sing 
ing  or  of  playing  upon  some  of  the  numerous 
instruments  of  the  time."  For  the  class  to  which 
he  was  then  lecturing  in  the  Peabody  Institute 
he  was  able  to  point  out  and  illustrate  various 
forms  of  music  and  to  give  biographical  sketches 
of  the  English  musicians  of  Shakespeare's  age. 

Lanier  was  most  of  all  interested,  however,  in 
the  development  of  modern  music,  and  especially 

1  Music  and  Poetry,  p.  50. 

2  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  ii,  p.  1. 


140  SIDNEY   LANIER 

in  orchestral  music.  He  underrated  some  of  the 
classical  composers,  notably  Mozart.  He  was 
familiar  with  the  biographies  of  Chopin,  Beetho 
ven,  Schumann,  and  Wagner.  He  left  behind  a 
translation  of  Wagner's  "  Rheingold."  His 
poems  on  Beethoven  and  Wagner  indicate  his 
appreciation  of  their  music,  while  his  essays 
"  From  Bacon  to  Beethoven  "  and  "  The  Modern 
Orchestra"  show  minute  knowledge  of  their 
work  and  of  the  significance  of  the  orchestra  in 
modern  life.  A  better  description  of  Theodore 
Thomas  as  the  leader  of  an  orchestra  has  not 
been  written  than  Lanier's  :  — 

"To  see  Thomas  lead  ...  is  music  itself! 
His  baton  is  alive,  full  of  grace,  of  symmetry  ; 
he  maketh  no  gestures,  he  readeth  his  score  al 
most  without  looking  at  it,  he  seeth  everybody, 
heareth  everything,  warneth  every  man,  encour- 
ageth  every  instrument,  quietly,  firmly,  marvel- 
ously.  Not  the  slightest  shade  of  nonsense,  not 
the  faintest  spark  of  affectation,  not  the  minut 
est  grain  of  effect  is  in  him.  He  taketh  the  or 
chestra  in  his  hand  as  if  it  were  a  pen,  —  and 
writeth  with  it."  l 

If  Lanier  had  been  only  a  successful  virtuoso 
with  the  flute,  the  tradition  of  his  playing  would 
have  lingered  in  the  minds  of  at  least  two  gener 
ations.  Through  the  reminiscences  of  college 

1  Letters^  p.  92. 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       141 

mates,  of  soldiers  and  of  frequenters  of  the  Pea- 
body  concerts,  the  memory  of  this  genius  with 
the  flute  would  have  remained  like  that  of  some 
troubadour  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  he  left  no  compositions  to  indicate  a  musical 
power  sufficient  to  give  him  a  place  in  the  history 
of  American  music.  It  cannot  be  controverted, 
however,  that  he  is  the  one  man  of  letters  in 
America  who  has  had  an  adequate  appreciation 
of  the  value  of  music  in  the  culture  of  the  mod 
ern  world.  To  him  music  was  a  culture  study  as 
much  as  the  study  of  literature.  It  was  an  edu 
cation  to  him  to  hear  the  adequate  representation 
of  modern  orchestral  works.  Hamerik's  plan  of 
giving  separate  nights  to  the  music  of  various 
nationalities  was  calculated  to  emphasize  this 
phase  of  musical  culture.  To  Lanier,  who  had 
never  traveled  abroad  and  who  did  not  have  time 
to  read  the  literatures  of  foreign  nations,  such  mu 
sical  programmes  had  the  effect  of  enabling  him 
to  divine  the  places  and  the  life  from  which  the 
music  had  come.  "  I  am  just  come  from  Venice," 
he  says,  "and  have  strolled  home  through  the 
moonlight,  singing  serenades.  ...  I  have  been 
playing  4  Stradella '  and  I  am  full  of  gondellieds, 
of  serenades,  of  balconies  with  white  arms  lean 
ing  over  the  balustrades  thereof,  of  gleaming 
waters,  of  lithe  figures  in  black  velvet,  of  sting 
ing  sweet  coquetries,  of  diamonds,  daggers,  and 


142  SIDNEY   LANIER 

desperadoes.  ...  I  cannot  tell  the  intense  de 
light  which  these  lovely  conceptions  of  Flotow 
gave  me.  The  man  has  put  Venice,  lovely,  ro 
mantic,  wicked-sweet  Venice,  into  music,  and  the 
melodies  breathe  out  an  eloquence  that  is  at  once 
sentimental  and  powerful,  at  once  languid  and 
thrilling."!  ' 

A  description -of  the  "  Hunt  of  Henry  IV  " 
shows  how  Lanier  associated  nature,  music,  and 
poetry  with  each  other.  He  was  an  ardent  ad 
vocate  of  "programme-music."  He  saw  music 
as  he  heard  poetry.  He  felt  the  musical  effects 
in  poetry  and  the  poetical  effects  in  music: 
*'  Then,  the  4  Hunt  of  Henry  I V  M  ...  It  open- 
eth  with  a  grave  and  courteous  invitation,  as  of 
a  cavalier  riding  by  some  dainty  lady,  through 
the  green  aisles  of  the  deep  woods,  to  the  hunt, 
—  a  lovely,  romantic  melody,  the  first  violins 
discoursing  the  man's  words,  the  first  flute  re 
plying  for  the  lady.  Presently  a  fanfare;  a 
sweet  horn  replies  out  of  the  far  woods  ;  then  the 
meeting  of  the  gay  cavaliers  ;  then  the  start, 
the  dogs  are  unleashed,  one  hound  gives  tongue, 
another  joins,  the  stag  is  seen  —  hey,  gentlemen ! 
away  they  all  fly  through  the  sweet  leaves,  by 
the  great  oaks  and  beeches,  all  a-dash  among  the 
brambles,  till  presently,  bang !  goeth  a  pistol  (it 
was  my  veritable  old  revolver  loaded  with  blank 

1  Letters,  p.  98. 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       143 

cartridge  for  the  occasion,  the  revolver  that  hath 
lain  so  many  nights  under  my  head),  fired  by  Tym- 
pani  (as  we  call  him,  the  same  being  a  nervous 
little  Frenchman  who  playeth  our  drums),  and 
then  the  stag  dieth  in  a  celestial  concord  of  flutes, 
oboes,  and  violins.  Oh,  how  far  off  my  soul 
was  in  this  thrilling  moment !  It  was  in  a  rare, 
sweet  glen  in  Tennessee ;  the  sun  was  rising  over 
a  wilderness  of  mountains,  I  was  standing  (how 
well  I  remember  the  spot  !)  alone  in  the  dewy 
grass,  wild  with  rapture  and  with  expectation. 
Yonder  came,  gracefully  walking,  a  lovely  fawn. 
I  looked  into  its  liquid  eyes,  hesitated,  prayed, 
gulped  a  sigh,  then  overcome  with  the  savage 
hunter's  instinct,  fired ;  the  fawn  leaped  convul 
sively  a  few  yards,  I  ran  to  it,  found  it  lying  on 
its  side,  and  received  into  my  agonized  and  re 
morseful  heart  the  reproaches  of  its  most  tender, 
dying  gaze.  But  luckily  I  had  not  the  right  to 
linger  over  this  sad  scene  ;  the  conductor's  baton 
shook  away  the  dying  pause ;  on  all  sides  shouts 
and  fanfares  and  gallopings  '  to  the  death,'  to 
which  the  first  flute  had  to  reply  in  time,  re 
called  me  to  my  work,  and  I  came  through  bril 
liantly."  i 

Because  of  its  culture  value,  Lanier  believed 
that  music  should  have  its  place  in  every  college 
and  university.  As  far  back  as  1867  —  in  "  Tiger 
1  Letters,  p.  85. 


144  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Lilies "  —  he  had  advocated  the  appointment 
of  professors  of  music  in  American  colleges  of 
equal  dignity  with  other  specialists.  He  himself 
hoped  that  he  might  be  appointed  to  such  a  chair, 
first  in  the  College  of  Music  in  New  York  and 
later  in  Johns  Hopkins  University.  It  is  easy 
to  conceive  that  he  might  have  become  an  ex 
pert  teacher  in  the  science  of  music,  but  it  is 
more  probable  that  if  he  had  held  a  chair  in  an 
academic  institution  he  would  have  forwarded  the 
work  that  has  now  become  a  distinct  feature  of 
all  the  larger  universities.  He  would  have  made 
an  excellent "  literary  "  teacher  of  music,  interest 
ing  men  in  the  biographies  of  great  musicians, 
and  interpreting  for  them  the  mysteries  of  or 
chestra  and  opera.  He  conceived  of  music  as 
one  of  the  humanities,  and  would  have  agreed 
with  President  Eliot  that  "  music  is  a  culture 
study,  if  there  is  one  in  the  world."  In  his  life 
it  took  the  place  that  travel  and  many  literatures 
held  in  the  lives  of  Longfellow  and  Lowell. 
He  believed  with  Theodore  Thomas  that  Bee 
thoven's  music  is  "  something  more  than  mere 
pleasure  ;  it  is  education,  thought,  emotion,  love, 
and  hope." 

Furthermore,  Lanier  believed  in  the  religious 
value  of  music ;  it  was  a  "  gospel  whereof  the 
people  are  in  great  need,  —  a  later  revelation 
of  all  gospels  in  one."  "  Music,"  he  says,  "  is 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       145 

to  be  the  Church  of  the  future,  wherein  all 
creeds  will  unite  like  the  tones  in  a  chord."  He 
was  one  of  "  those  fervent  souls  who  fare  easily 
by  this  road  to  the  Lord."  Haydn's  inscription, 
"Laus  Deo,"  was  in  Lanier's  mind  whenever  he 
listened  to  great  music  ;  for  it  tended  to  "  help 
the  emotions  of  man  across  the  immensity  of  the 
known  into  the  boundaries  of  the  Unknown."  He 
would  have  composers  to  be  ministers  of  reli 
gion.  He  could  not  understand  the  indifference 
of  some  leaders  of  orchestras,  who  could  be  sat 
isfied  with  appealing  to  the  esthetic  emotions  of 
an  audience,  while  they  might  "  set  the  hearts  of 
fifteen  hundred  people  afire."  The  final  mean 
ing  of  music  to  him  was  that  it  created  within 
man  "  a  great,  pure,  unanalyzable  yearning  after 
God." 

Holding  this  exalted  view  of  music,  he  be 
lieved  that  its  future  was  immense  and  that 
in  America  its  triumphs  were  to  be  greater 
than  they  had  been  elsewhere.  At  a  time  when 
musical  culture  was  rare  in  this  country,  he 
looked  forward  with  hope  and  expectation  to  the 
time  when  America  would  become  a  patron  of 
the  best  music.  "When  Americans,"  he  said, 
"  shall  have  learned  the  supreme  value  and 
glory  of  the  orchestra,  .  .  .  then  I  look  to  see 
America  the  home  of  the  orchestra,  and  to  hear 
everywhere  the  profound  messages  of  Beetho- 


146  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ven  and  Bach  to  men."  And  again  :  ",A11  the 
signs  of  the  times  seem  to  point  to  this  country 
as  the  scene  of  the  future  development  of  mu 
sic.  ...  It  only  needs  direction,  artistic  atmo 
sphere,  and  technique  in  order  to  fill  the  land 
with  such  orchestras  as  the  world  has  never  heard. 
When  our  so-called  conservatories  and  music 
schools,  instead  of  straining  every  nerve  to  outdo 
each  other  in  turning  out  hosts  of  bad  piano- 
players,  shall  address  themselves  earnestly  to  the 
education  of  performers  upon  all  the  orchestral 
instruments  ;  when  our  people  shall  have  become 
aware  of  the  height  and  glory  of  the  orchestra, 
as  the  only  instrument  for  the  deepest  adorations 
in  man ;  .  .  .  when  our  young  women  shall  ask 
themselves  for  any  serious  reason  why  they 
should  all,  with  one  accord,  devote  themselves  to 
the  piano  instead  of  to  the  flute,  the  violin,  the 
hautboy,  the  harp,  the  viola,  the  violoncello,  the 
horn  instruments  which  pertain  to  women  fully 
as  much  as  to  men,  and  some  of  which  actually 
belong  by  nature  to  those  supple,  tactile,  deli 
cate,  firm,  passionate,  and  tender  fingers  with 
which  the  woman  is  endowed ;  when  our  young 
men  shall  have  discovered  that  the  orchestral 
player  can  so  exercise  his  office  as  to  make  it  of 
far  more  dignity  and  worth  than  any  political 
place  in  the  gift  of  the  people,  and  that  the 
business  of  making  orchestral  music  may  one 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       147 

day  become  far  higher  in  nobility  than  the  ig 
noble  sentinelship  over  one's  pocket  to  which 
most  lawyers  are  reduced,  or  the  melancholy 
slaveries  of  the  shop  and  the  counting-room  and 
the  like  i  business  '  which  is  now  paramount  in  es 
teem  ;  when  —  I  will  not  say  when  we  have  a  new 
music  to  perform,  but  when  we  shall  have  played 
Beethoven's  symphonies  as  they  should  be  played, 
and  shall  have  revealed  to  us  all  the  might, 
all  the  faith,  all  the  religion,  the  tenderness,  the 
heavenly  invitation,  the  subtle  excursions  down 
into  the  heart  of  man,  the  brotherhood,  the  free 
dom,  the  exaltation,  the  whisperings  of  sorrow 
unto  sorrow,  the  messages  of  God  which  these 
immortal  and  yet  unmeasured  compositions  em 
body,"  1  then  will  America  give  to  music  the  place 
it  deserves.  Music  will  be  one  of  the  redeemers 
of  the  people  from  crass  commercialism. 

While  Lanier  held  before  the  American  people 
the  vision  of  what  they  might  accomplish  in 
music,  he  held  up  to  musicians  the  high  ideal  of 
what  they  should  be.  In  the  essay  just  quoted,  he 
indorses  the  saying  of  Mazzini's  that  "  musicians 
may  become  a  priesthood  and  ministry  of  moral 
regeneration.  .  .  .  Why  rest  contented  with 
stringing  notes  together  —  mere  trouveres  of  a 
day  —  when  it  remains  with  you  to  consecrate 

1  An  uncollected  essay  by  Lanier,  "  Mazzini  on  Music,"  The 
Independent,  June  27,  1878. 


148  SIDNEY   LANIER 

yourselves,  even  on  earth,  to  a  mission  such  as 
in  the  popular  belief  only  God's  angels  know  ? " 
With  his  high  ideal  of  what  a  musician  should 
be,  he  could  not  but  be  disgusted  at  times  with 
the  Boheniianism  of  the  men  who  played  with 
him,  and  with  the  loose  moral  life  of  many  more 
eminent  musicians.  "  Ah,  these  heathenish  Ger 
mans  !  "  he  exclaims,  as  he  sees  some  of  the  or 
chestra  at  a  church  service  making  fun  of  the 
communion  service :  "  Double-bass  was  a  big 
fellow,  with  a  black  mustache,  to  whom  life  was 
all  a  joke,  which  he  expressed  by  a  comical 
smile,  and  Viola  was  a  young  Hercules,  so  full 
of  beer  that  he  dreamed  himself  in  heaven,  and 
Oboe  was  a  young  sprig,  just  out  from  Munich, 
with  a  complexion  of  milk  and  roses,  like  a  girl's, 
and  miraculously  bright  spectacles  on  his  pale 
blue  eyes,  and  there  they  sat  —  Oboe  and  Viola 
and  Double-bass  —  and  ogled  each  other,  and 
raised  their  brows,  and  snickered  behind  the 
columns,  without  a  suspicion  of  interest  either 
in  the  music  or  the  service.  Dash  these  fellows, 
they  are  utterly  given  over  to  heathenism,  pre 
judice,  and  beer." 1 

The  best  expression  of  his  ideal  of  what  a  great 
composer  should  be,  is  in  a  letter  written  to  his 
wife  just  after  he  had  read  the  life  of  Robert 
Schumann :  — 

1  Letters,  p.  88. 


A   MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE       149 

NEW  YORK,  Sunday,  October  18,  1874. 
I  have  been  in  my  room  all  day ;  and  have 
just  concluded  a  half-dozen  delicious  hours,  dur 
ing  which  I  have  been  devouring,  with  a  hungry 
ferocity  of  rapture  which  I  know  not  how  to  ex 
press,  "  The  Life  of  Robert  Schumann,"  by  his 
pupil,  von  Wasielewski.  This  pupil,  I  am  sure, 
did  not  fully  comprehend  his  great  master.  I 
think  the  key  to  Schumann's  whole  character, 
with  all  its  labyrinthine  and  often  disappointing 
peculiarities,  is  this :  That  he  had  no  mode  of 
self-expression,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  of  self- 
expansion,  besides  the  musical  mode.  This  may 
seem  a  strange  remark  to  make  of  him  who  was 
the  founder  and  prolific  editor  of  a  great  musical 
journal,  and  who  perhaps  exceeded  any  musician 
of  his  time  in  general  culture.  But  I  do  not 
mean  that  he  was  confined  to  music  for  self- 
expression,  though  indeed,  the  sort  of  critical 
writing  which  Schumann  did  so  much  of  is  not 
at  all  like  poetry  in  its  tranquillizing  effects 
upon  the  soul  of  the  writer.  What  I  do  mean  is 
that  his  sympathies  were  not  big  enough,  he  did 
not  go  through  the  awful  struggle  of  genius,  and 
lash  and  storm  and  beat  about  until  his  soul  was 
grown  large  enough  to  embrace  the  whole  of  life 
and  the  All  of  things,  that  is,  large  enough  to 
appreciate  (if  even  without  understanding)  the 
magnificent  designs  of  God,  and  tall  enough  to 


150  SIDNEY   LANIER 

stand  in  the  trough  of  the  awful  cross-waves  of 
circumstance  and  look  over  their  heights  along 
the  whole  sea  of  God's  manifold  acts,  and  deep 
enough  to  admit  the  peace  that  passeth  under 
standing.  This  is,  indeed,  the  fault  of  all  Ger 
man  culture,  and  the  weakness  of  all  German 
genius.  A  great  artist  should  have  the  sensibility 
and  expressive  genius  of  Schumann,  the  calm 
grandeur  of  Lee,  and  the  human  breadth  of 
Shakespeare,  all  in  one. 

Now  in  this  particular,  of  being  open,  un 
prejudiced,  and  unenvious,  Schumann  soars  far 
above  his  brother  Germans ;  he  valiantly  de 
fended  our  dear  Chopin,  and  other  young  musi 
cians  who  were  struggling  to  make  head  against 
the  abominable  pettiness  of  German  prejudice. 
But,  withal,  I  cannot  find  that  his  life  was  great, 
as  a  whole  ;  I  cannot  see  him  caring  for  his  land, 
for  the  poor,  for  religion,  for  humanity ;  he  was 
always  a  restless  soul ;  and  the  ceaseless  wear  of 
incompleteness  finally  killed,  as  a  maniac,  him 
whom  a  broader  Love  might  have  kept  alive  as 
a  glorious  artist  to  this  day. 

The  truth  is,  the  world  does  not  require  enough 
at  the  hands  of  genius.  Under  the  special  plea 
of  greater  sensibilities,  and  of  consequent  greater 
temptations,  it  excuses  its  gifted  ones,  and  even 
sometimes  makes  "  a  law  of  their  weakness." 
But  this  is  wrong:  the  sensibility  of  genius  is 


A  MUSICIAN   IN   BALTIMORE        151 

just  as  much  greater  to  high  emotions  as  to  low 
ones ;  and  whilst  it  subjects  to  stronger  tempta 
tions,  it  at  the  same  time  interposes  —  if  it  will 
—  stronger  considerations  for  resistance. 

These  are  scarcely  fair  things  to  be  saying 
apropos  of  Robert  Schumann ;  for  I  do  not 
think  he  was  ever  guilty  of  any  excesses  of  ge 
nius  —  as  they  are  called  :  I  only  mean  them  to 
apply  to  the  unrest  of  his  life. 

And  yet,  for  all  I  have  said,  how  his  music 
does  burn  in  my  soul !  It  stretches  me  upon  the 
very  rack  of  delight ;  I  know  no  musician  that 
fills  me  so  full  of  heavenly  anguish,  and  if  I  had 
to  give  up  all  the  writers  of  music  save  one,  my 
one  should  be  Robert  Schumann.  —  Some  of  his 
experiences  cover  some  of  my  own  as  aptly  as 
one  half  of  an  oyster  shell  does  the  other  half.1 
1  Letters,  p.  103. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  BEGINNING  OF   A    LITERARY  CAREER 

DURING  the  winter  of  1873-74,  the  first  win 
ter  in  Baltimore,  Lanier  had,  as  has  been  seen, 
given  his  entire  time  to  music.  The  only  poetry 
he  had  written  had  been  inspired  by  love  for  his 
absent  wife,  —  poems  breathing  of  the  deepest 
and  tenderest  affection.  Scarcely  less  poetical 
were  the  letters  written  to  her  giving  expression 
to  his  joy  in  the  large  new  world  into  which  he 
was  entering,  and  at  the  same  time  to  his  sense 
of  loneliness  and  pain  at  their  separation.  To 
her  and  his  boys  he  went  as  soon  as  his  engage 
ment  with  the  Peabody  Orchestra  was  ended. 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  had  spoken  of  himself  as 
"  an  exile  from  his  dear  Land,  which  is  always 
the  land  where  my  loved  ones  are."  He  found 
delight  during  this  summer,  as  in  the  following 
ones,  in  the  renewal  of  home  ties,  and  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  natural  scenery  of  Macon  and 
Brunswick,  to  whose  beauty  he  never  ceased  to 
be  sensitive. 

It  was  in  August,  1874,  that  he  received  a 
fresh  impulse  towards  poetry,  or,  at  least,  towards 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    153 

the  writing  of  more  important  poems  than  those 
he  had  heretofore  written.  While  visiting  at 
Sunnyside,  Georgia,  some  sixty  miles  from  Ma- 
con,  he  was  struck  at  once  with  the  beauty  of 
cornfields  and  the  pathos  of  deserted  farms. 
Hence  arose  his  first  poem  that  attracted  atten 
tion  throughout  the  country.  He  took  it  to  New 
York  with  him  in  the  fall.  Writing  to  his  friend, 
Judge  Logan  E.  Bleckley,  now  Chief  Justice  of 
Georgia,  who  during  this  summer  spoke  encour 
aging  words  to  him  about  the  faith  he  had  in  his 
literary  future,  he  inclosed  his  recently  finished 
poem  with  these  words  :  — 

195  DEAN  ST.,  BROOKLYN,  N.Y. 
October  9,  1874. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  could  never  tell  you  how 
sincerely  grateful  I  am  to  you,  and  shall  always 
be,  for  a  few  words  you  spoke  to  me  recently. 

Such  encouragement  would  have  been  pleasant 
at  any  time,  but  this  happened  to  come  just  at  a 
critical  moment  when,  although  I  had  succeeded 
in  making  up  my  mind  finally  and  decisively  as 
to  my  own  career,  I  was  yet  faint  from  a  desper 
ate  struggle  with  certain  untoward  circumstances 
which  it  would  not  become  me  to  detail. 

Did  you  ever  lie  for  a  whole  day  after  being 
wounded,  and  then  have  water  brought  you  ?  If 
so,  you  will  know  how  your  words  came  to  me. 


154  SIDNEY   LANIER 

I  inclose  the  manuscript  of  a  poem  in  which  I 
have  endeavored  to  carry  some  very  prosaic  mat- 
ters  up  to  a  loftier  plane.  I  have  been  struck 
with  alarm  in  seeing  the  number  of  old,  deserted 
homesteads  and  gullied  hills  in  the  older  coun 
ties  of  Georgia ;  and  though  they  are  dreadfully 
commonplace,  I  have  thought  they  are  surely 
mournful  enough  to  be  poetic.  Please  give  me 
your  judgment  on  my  effort,  without  reserve  ;  for 
if  you  should  say  you  do  not  like  it,  the  only 
effect  on  me  will  be  to  make  me  write  one  that 
you  do  like. 

Believe  me  always  your  friend, 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 

The  answer  to  this  letter,  giving  a  detailed 
criticism  of  the  poem,  was  very  helpful  to  Lanier. 
Judge  Bleckley  is  a  man  of  much  cultivation, 
and  is  widely  known  throughout  Georgia  as  at  once 
one  of  the  leading  lawyers  of  the  State  and  a  man 
who  can  in  his  leisure  moments  engage  in  literary 
work  which,  though  not  published,  gives  evidence 
of  imagination  and  taste.  Lanier  was  wise  enough 
to  accept  most  of  his  criticism  :  the  revised  form 
of  the  poem  compared  with  the  first  form  shows 
a  great  many  changes,  and  is  striking  evidence 
of  Lanier's  power  to  improve  his  work.  Judge 
Bleckley 's  characterization  of  "  Corn  "  so  accu 
rately  describes  it  that  his  words  may  be  quoted 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     155 

here  :  "  It  presents  four  pictures  ;  three  of  them 
landscapes  and  one  a  portrait.  You  paint  the 
woods,  a  cornfield,  and  a  worn-out  hill.  These 
are  your  landscapes.  And  your  portrait  is  the 
likeness  of  an  anxious,  unthrifty  cotton-planter, 
who  always  spends  his  crop  before  he  has  made 
it,  borrows  on  heavy  interest  to  carry  himself 
over  from  year  to  year,  wears  out  his  land,  meets 
at  last  with  utter  ruin,  and  migrates  to  the  West. 
Your  second  landscape  is  turned  into  a  vegeta 
ble  person  [the  cornstalk  is  Lanier's  symbol  of 
the  poet],  and  you  give  its  poetry  with  many 
touches  of  marvel  and  mystery  in  vegetable  life. 
Your  third  landscape  takes  for  an  instant  the 
form  and  tragic  state  of  King  Lear  ;  you  thus 
make  it  seize  on  our  sympathies  as  if  it  were  a 
real  person,  and  you  then  restore  it  to  the  inan 
imate,  and  contemplate  its  possible  beneficence 
in  the  distant  future."  l 

The  poem  was  published  in  "  Lippincott's 
Magazine,"  February,  1875,  and  at  once  at 
tracted  the  attention  of  some  discriminating 
readers  of  magazines,  notably  Mr.  Gibson  Pea 
cock,  the  editor  of  the  Philadelphia  "  Evening 
Bulletin,"  who  reviewed  it  in  a  most  sympa 
thetic  manner,  and  became  one  of  the  poet's 
best  friends  during  the  remainder  of  his  life.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  the  scenery  of  the  poem  should 

1  Quoted  in  Callaway's  Select  Poems  of  Lanier,  p.  61. 


156  SIDNEY   LANIER 

be  so  distinctively  and  realistically  Southern. 
There  is  in  the  first  part  all  of  Lanier's  love 
of  the  Southern  forest :  the  shimmering  forms 
in  the  woods,  the  leaves,  the  subtlety  of  mighty 
tenderness  in  the  embracing  boughs,  the  long 
muscadines,  the  mosses,  ferns,  and  flowers,  are  all 
delicately  felt  and  described  —  with  a  suggestion 
of  Keats.  As  he  wanders  from  this  forest  to  the 
zigzag-cornered  fence,  his  fieldward-faring  eyes 
take  in  the  beauty  of  the  cornfield,  "  the  hea 
ven  of  blue  inwoven  with  a  heaven  of  green." 
One  tall  corn  captain  becomes  to  his  mind  the 
symbol  of  the  poet-soul  sublime,  who  takes 
from  all  that  he  may  give  to  all.  The  picture 
of  the  thriftless  and  negligent  Southern  farmer, 
"  a  gamester's  cat'spaw  and  a  banker's  slave," 
shows  Lanier's  keen  insight  into  Southern  con 
ditions,  which  he  had,  while  living  in  Macon, 
studied  with  much  care  and  which  he  now  lifted 
into  the  realm  of  poetry.  The  red  hills  of 
Georgia,  deserted  and  barren,  are  presented  with 
true  pathos.  Nevertheless,  like  a  genuine  pro 
phet,  the  poet  looks  forward  to  a  better  day  :  — 

Yet  shall  the  great  God  turn  thy  fate, 
And  bring  thee  back  into  thy  monarch  state 

And  majesty  immaculate. 

Lo,  through  hot  waverings  of  the  August  morn, 
Thou  givest  from  thy  vasty  sides  forlorn 
Visions  of  golden  treasuries  of  corn  — 
Ripe  largesse  lingering  for  some  bolder  heart 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     157 

That  manfully  shall  take  thy  part, 

And  tend  thee, 

And  defend  thee, 
With  antique  sinew  and  with  modern  art. 

This  vision  of  the  South's  restored  agriculture 
was  one  that  remained  with  Lanier  to  the  end. 
He  did  not  properly  appreciate  the  development 
of  manufacturing  in  the  South,  but  he  believed 
that  the  redemption  of  the  country  would  come 
through  the  development  of  agriculture  —  not 
the  restoration  of  the  large  plantations  of  the 
old  regime,  but  the  large  number  of  small  farms 
with  diversified  products.  On  a  later  visit  to  the 
South  he  exclaimed  to  his  brother,  "  My  coun 
trymen,  why  plant  ye  not  the  vineyards  of  the 
Lord  ?  "  and  later  he  wrote  in  his  essay  on  the 
"  New  South  "  of  the  actual  fulfillment  of  his 
prophecy  in  "  Corn." 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  "  Corn,"  Lanier, 
while  giving  a  large  part  of  his  time  to  music 
during  the  winter  of  1874-75,  looked  more 
and  more  in  the  direction  of  poetry.  He  writes 
again  to  Judge  Bleckley,  November  15,  1874 : 
"  Your  encouraging  words  give  me  at  once 
strength  and  pleasure.  I  hope  hard  and  work 
hard  to  do  something  worthy  of  them  some  day. 
My  head  and  my  heart  are  both  so  full  of  poems 
which  the  dreadful  struggle  for  bread  does  not 
give  me  time  to  put  on  paper,  that  I  am  often 


158  SIDNEY   LANIER 

driven  to  headache  and  heartache  purely  for 
want  of  an  hour  or  two  to  hold  a  pen."  He  then 
proceeds  to  outline  what  is  to  be  his  first  magnum 
opus,  "  a  long  poem,  founded  on  that  strange 
uprising  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century 
in  France,  called  4  The  Jacquerie.'  It  was  the 
first  time  that  the  big  hungers  of  the  People  ap 
pear  in  our  modern  civilization ;  and  it  is  full  of 
significance.  The  peasants  learned  from  the  mer 
chant  potentates  of  Flanders  that  a  man  who 
could  not  be  a  lord  by  birth,  might  be  one  by 
wealth ;  and  so  Trade  arose,  and  overthrew  Chiv 
alry.  Trade  has  now  had  possession  of  the  civil 
ized  world  for  four  hundred  years  :  it  controls  all 
things,  it  interprets  the  Bible,  it  guides  our  na 
tional  and  almost  all  our  individual  life  with  its 
maxims  ;  and  its  oppressions  upon  the  moral 
existence  of  man  have  come  to  be  ten  thousand 
times  more  grievous  than  the  worst  tyrannies  of 
the  Feudal  System  ever  were.  Thus  in  the  re 
versals  of  time,  it  is  now  the  gentleman  who  must 
rise  and  overthrow  Trade.  That  chivalry  which 
every  man  has,  in  some  degree,  in  his  heart ; 
which  does  not  depend  upon  birth,  but  which  is 
a  revelation  from  God  of  justice,  of  fair  dealing, 
of  scorn  of  mean  advantages  ;  which  contemns 
the  selling  of  stock  which  one  knows  is  going  to 
fall,  to  a  man  who  believes  it  is  going  to  rise,  as 
much  as  it  would  contemn  any  other  form  of 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY   CAREER 

rascality  or  of  injustice  or  of  meanness  —  it  is/ 
this  which  must  in  these  latter  days  organize  its 
insurrections  and  burn  up  every  one  of  the  cun 
ning  moral  castles  from  which  Trade  sends  out 
its  forays  upon  the  conscience  of  modern  society. 
—  This  is  about  the  plan  which  is  to  run  through 
my  book  :  though  I  conceal  it  under  the  form  of 
a  pure  novel."  1 

Lanier  never  finished  this  poem,  but  he  was 
soon  hard  at  work  on  another  which  was  based 
on  the  same  idea,  "  The  Symphony."  Writ 
ing  to  his  newly  acquired  friend,  Mr.  Pea 
cock,  March  24,  1875,  he  says  :  "  About  four 
days  ago,  a  certain  poem  which  I  had  vaguely 
ruminated  for  a  week  before  took  hold  of  me 
like  a  real  James  River  ague,  and  I  have  been  in 
a  mortal  shake  with  the  same,  day  and  night, 
ever  since.  I  call  it  4  The  Symphony : '  I  person 
ify  each  instrument  in  the  orchestra,  and  make 
them  discuss  various  deep  social  questions  of  the 
times,  in  the  progress  of  the  music.  It  is  now 
nearly  finished  ;  and  I  shall  be  rejoiced  thereat, 
for  it  verily  racks  all  the  bones  of  my  spirit." 
The  poem  was  published  in  "  Lippincott's  Maga 
zine,"  June,  1875 ;  and  besides  confirming  the 
good  opinion  of  Mr.  Peacock,  won  the  praise  of 
Bayard  Taylor,  George  H.  Calvert,  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps,  and  Charlotte  Cushman,  and  was 

1  Quoted  in  part  in  Callaway's  Select  Poems  of  Lanier,  p.  65. 


160  SIDNEY   LANIER 

copied  in   full  in   D wight's   "Journal  of  Mu 
sic." 

As  in  his  first  poem  Lanier  had  pointed  out  a 
defect  in  Southern  life,  so  in  his  second  long 
poem  he  struck  at  one  of  the  evils  of  national 
life.  In  the  South  he  felt  that  there  was  not 
enough  of  the  spirit  of  industry ;  looking  at  the 
nation  as  a  whole,  however,  he  exclaims :  — 

"  O  Trade  !  O  Trade  !  would  thou  wert  dead  ! 
The  time  needs  heart  —  '  t  is  tired  of  head  : 
We  are  all  for  love,"  the  violins  said. 

The  germ  of  this  poem  is  found  perhaps  in 
a  letter  written  from  Wheeling,  West  Virginia, 
where  he  went  with  some  of  his  fellow  musicians 
to  give  a  concert,  April  16, 1874.  It  is  a  realistic 
picture  of  a  city  completely  dominated  by  fac 
tory  life.  What  he  afterwards  called  "  the  hell- 
colored  smoke  of  the  factories  "  created  within 
him  a  feeling  of  righteous  indignation  akin  to 
that  of  Ruskin,  although  it  must  be  said  in  jus 
tice  to  Lanier  that,  in  combating  the  evils  of  in 
dustrial  life,  he  never  went  to  the  extreme  of 
eccentric  passion  displayed  by  the  English  writer. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  could  he  say  with  Walt 
Whitman:  "I  hail  with  joy  the  .oceanic, "varie 
gated,  intense  practical  energy,  the  demand  for 
facts,  even  the  business  materialism,  of  the  cur 
rent  age.  ...  I  perceive  clearly  that  the  extreme 
business  energy  and  this  almost  maniacal  appe- 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     161 

tite  for  wealth  prevalent  in  the  United  States 
are  parts  of  a  melioration  and  progress,  indis 
pensably  needed  to  prepare  the  very  results  I 
demand." 

Lanier's  poem  is  more  applicable  to  the  condi 
tions  that  prevail  to-day  than  to  those  of  his  own 
time.  He  shows  himself  a  prophet,  the  truth  of 
whose  words  is  realized  by  many  of  the  finer 
minds  of  the  country.  He  lets  the  various  in 
struments  of  the  orchestra  utter  their  protest 
against  the  evils  of  modern  trade.  The  violin, 
speaking  for  the  poor  who  stand  wedged  by  the 
pressing  of  trade's  hand  and  "  weave  in  the  mills 
and  heave  in  the  kilns,"  protests  against  the  spirit 
of  competition  that  says  even  when  human  life 
is  involved,  "Trade  is  only  war  grown  miserly." 

Alas,  for  the  poor  to  have  some  part 
In  yon  sweet  living  lands  of  art. 

Then  the  flute  —  Lanier's  own  flute,  summing 
up  the  voices  of  nature,  "  all  fair  forms,  and 
sounds,  and  lights  "  —  echoes  the  words  of  the 
Master,  "  All  men  are  neighbors."  Trade,  the 
king  of  the  modern  days,  will  not  allow  the  poor 
a  glimpse  of  "  the  outside  hills  of  liberty."  The 
clarionet  is  the  voice  of  a  lady  who  speaks  of  the 
merchandise  of  love  and  yearns  for  the  old  days 
of  chivalry  before  trade  had  withered  up  love's 
sinewy  prime :  — 


162  SIDNEY   LANIER 

If  men  loved  larger,  larger  were  our  lives; 
And  wooed  they  nobler,  won  they  nobler  wives. 

To  her  the  bold,  straightforward  horn  answers, 
"like  any  knight  in  knighthood's  morn."  He 
would  bring  back  the  age  of  chivalry,  when  there 
would  be  "  contempts  of  mean-got  gain  and  hates 
of  inward  stain."  He  voices,  too,  the  idea  long 
ago  expressed  by  Milton  that  men  should  be  as 
pure  as  women  :  — 

Shall  woman  scorch  for  a  single  sin, 
That  her  betrayer  may  revel  in, 
And  she  be  burnt,  and  he  but  grin 
When  that  the  flames  begin, 
Fair  lady  ? 

Shall  ne'er  prevail  the  woman's  plea, 
We  maids  would  far,  far  whiter  be 
If  that  our  eyes  might  sometimes  see 
Men  maids  in  purity. 

Then  the  hautboy  sings,  "  like  any  large-eyed 
child,"  calling  for  simplicity  and  naturalness  in 
this  modern  life.  And  all  join  at  the  last  in  a 
triumphant  chant  of  the  power  of  love  to  heal 
all  the  ills  of  life  :  - 

And  ever  Love  hears  the  poor-folks'  crying, 
And  ever  Love  hears  the  women's  sighing, 
And  ever  sweet  knighthood's  death-defying, 
And  ever  wise  childhood's  deep  implying, 
But  never  a  trader's  glozing  and  lying. 

And  yet  shall  Love  himself  be  heard, 
Though  long  deferred,  though  long  deferred  : 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY   CAREER    163 

O'er  the  modern  waste  a  dove  hath  whirred  : 
Music  is  Love  in  search  of  a  word. 

By  this  time  Lanier  was  hard  at  work  for  the 
publishers.  Although  he  never  lost  his  love  for 
music  —  he  could  not  — he  began  to  see  that  his 
must  be  a  literary  career.  In  a  letter  of  March 
20,  1876,  he  says  to  Judge  Bleckley  that  he  has 
had  a  year  of  frightful  overwork.  "  I  have  been 
working  at  such  a  rate  as,  if  I  could  keep  it  up, 
would  soon  make  me  the  proverb  of  fecundity  that 
Lope  de  Vega  now  is."  He  refers  to  the  India 
papers  written  for  "Lippincott's."  "The  collec 
tion  of  the  multitudinous  particulars  involved  in 
them  cost  me  such  a  world  of  labor  among  the 
libraries  of  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and 
Baltimore  as  would  take  a  long  time  to  describe. 
...  In  addition  to  these  I  have  written  a  num 
ber  of  papers  not  yet  published,  and  a  dozen 
small  poems  which  have  appeared  here  and  there. 

"  Now,  I  don't  work  for  bread  ;  in  truth,  I 
suppose  that  any  man  who,  after  many  days 
and  nights  of  tribulation  and  bloody  sweat,  has 
finally  emerged  from  all  doubt  into  the  quiet  and 
yet  joyful  activity  of  one  who  knows  exactly 
what  his  Great  Passion  is  and  what  his  God  de 
sires  him  to  do,  will  straightway  lose  all  anxiety 
as  to  what  he  is  working  for,  in  the  simple  glory 
of  doing  that  which  lies  immediately  before  him. 
As  for  me,  life  has  resolved  simply  into  a  time 


164  SIDNEY   LANIER 

during  which  I  must  get  upon  paper  as  many  as 

possible  of  the  poems  with  which  my  heart  is 

stuffed  like  a  schoolboy's  pocket."    He  quotes 

from  "  that  simple  and  powerful  sonnet  of  dear 

old  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  :  "  — 

Know  what  I  list,  this  all  cannot  me  move, 

But  that,  O  me  !  —  I  both  must  write  and  love. 

He  had  to  give  much  of  his  time,  however,  to 
hackwork.  During  the  summer  of  1875  he  was 
engaged  in  writing  a  book  on  Florida  for  the 
Lippincotts.  It  is,  as  he  wrote  to  Paul  Hamilton 
Hayne,  "  a  sort  of  spiritualized  guide-book  "  to 
a  section  which  was  then  drawing  a  large  num 
ber  of  visitors.  "  The  thing  immediately  began 
to  ramify  and  expand,  until  I  quickly  found  I 
was  in  for  a  long  and  very  difficult  job  :  so  long, 
and  so  difficult,  that,  after  working  day  and  night 
for  the  last  three  months  on  the  materials  I  had 
previously  collected,  I  have  just  finished  the  book, 
and  am  now  up  to  my  ears  in  proof-sheets  and 
wood-cuts  which  the  publishers  are  rushing 
through  in  order  to  publish  at  the  earliest  pos 
sible  moment,  the  book  having  several  features 
designed  to  meet  the  wants  of  winter  visitors 
to  Florida."  It  is  filled  with  facts  in  regard  to 
climate  and  scenery,  practical  hints  for  travelers, 
and  other  things  characteristic  of  a  guide-book  ; 
but  it  is  more  than  that.  Like  everything  else 
that  Lanier  ever  did,  —  even  the  dreariest  hack 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     165 

work,  —  he  threw  himself  into  it  with  great  zest. 
It  has  suggestions  to  consumptives  born  out  of 
his  own  experience.  There  are  allusions  to  music, 
literature,  and  philosophy.  There  are  descriptions 
and  historical  anecdotes  of  the  cities  of  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia ;  above  all,  there  are  de 
scriptions  of  the  Florida  country  which  only  a  poet 
could  write.  Two  passages  are  characteristic  :  — 

"  And  now  it  is  bed-time.  Let  me  tell  you  how 
to  sleep  on  an  Ocklawaha  steamer  in  May.  With 
a  small  bribe  persuade  Jim,  the  steward,  to  take 
the  mattress  out  of  your  berth  and  lay  it  slant 
ing  just  along  the  railing  that  incloses  the  lower 
part  of  the  deck  in  front  and  to  the  left  of  the 
pilot-house.  Lie  flat  on  your  back  down  on  the 
mattress,  draw  your  blanket  over  you,  put  your 
cap  on  your  head,  on  account  of  the  night  air, 
fold  your  arms,  say  some  little  prayer  or  other, 
and  fall  asleep  with  a  star  looking  right  down 
on  your  eye.  When  you  wake  in  the  morning 
you  will  feel  as  new  as  Adam." 

"  Presently  we  abandoned  the  broad  highway 
of  the  St.  Johns,  and  turned  off  to  the  right  into 
the  narrow  lane  of  the  Ocklawaha.  This  is  the 
sweetest  water-lane  in  the  world,  a  lane  which 
runs  for  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
of  pure  delight  betwixt  hedge-rows  of  oaks  and 
cypresses  and  palms  and  magnolias  and  mosses 
and  vines ;  a  lane  clean  to  travel,  for  there  is 


166  SIDNEY   LANIER 

never  a  speck  of  dust  in  it  save  the  blue  dust 
and  gold  dust  which  the  wind  blows  out  of  the 
flags  and  lilies." 

In  the  discussion  of  "  The  Symphony,"  empha 
sis  was  laid  upon  Lanier's  national  point  of  view. 
The  opportunity  soon  came  to  him  of  giving  ex 
pression  to  his  love  of  the  Union.  At  Bayard 
Taylor's  suggestion  he  was  appointed  by  the 
Centennial  Commission  to  write  the  words  for 
a  cantata  to  be  sung  at  the  opening  exercises 
of  the  exposition  in  Philadelphia.  Taylor,  in 
announcing  the  fact,  on  December  28,  1875, 
said :  "  I  have  just  had  a  visit  from  Theodore 
Thomas  and  Mr.  Buck,  and  we  talked  the  whole 
matter  over.  Thomas  remembers  you  well,  and 
Mr.  Buck  says  it  will  be  especially  agreeable  to 
him  to  compose  for  the  words  of  a  Southern  poet. 
I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  speaking  for  you,  both 
to  them  and  to  General  Hawley,  and  you  must 
not  fail  me.  ... 

"  Now,  my  dear  Lanier,  I  am  sure  you  can  do 
this  worthily.  It 's  a  great  occasion,  —  not  es 
pecially  for  poetry  as  an  art,  but  for  Poetry  to 
assert  herself  as  a  power." 1  To  this  letter  Lanier 
replied :  "  If  it  were  a  cantata  upon  your  good 
ness,  ...  I  am  willing  to  wager  I  could  write  a 
stirring  one  and  a  grateful  withal. 

"  Of  course  I  will  accept  —  when  't  is  offered. 

1  Letters,  p.  136. 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     167 

I  only  write  a  hasty  line  now  to  say  how  deeply 
I  am  touched  by  the  friendly  forethought  of 
your  letter."  l 

He  announces  the  fact  to  his  wife  in  a  jubi 
lant  letter  of  January  8,  1876  :  "  Moreover,  I 
have  a  charming  piece  of  news  which  —  although 
thou  art  not  yet  to  communicate  it  to  any  one 
except  Clifford  —  I  cannot  keep  from  thee.  The 
opening  ceremonies  of  the  Centennial  Exhibition 
will  be  very  grand;  and  among  other  things 
there  are  to  be  sung  by  a  full  chorus  (and  played 
by  the  orchestra,  under  Thomas's  direction)  a 
hymn  and  a  cantata.  General  Hawley,  President 
of  the  Centennial  Commission,  has  written  invit 
ing  me  to  write  the  latter  (I  mean  the  poem  ; 
Dudley  Buck,  of  New  York,  is  to  write  the 
music).  Bayard  Taylor  is  to  write  the  hymn.2 
This  is  very  pleasing  to  me  ;  for  I  am  chosen  as 
representative  of  our  dear  South  ;  and  the  matter 
puts  my  name  by  the  side  of  very  delightful  and 
honorable  ones,  besides  bringing  me  in  contact 
with  many  people  I  would  desire  to  know. 

"  Mr.  Buck  has  written  me  that  he  wants  the 
poem  by  January  15,  which  as  I  have  not  yet 
had  the  least  time  for  it,  gives  me  just  seven  days 
to  write  it  in.  I  would  much  rather  have  had  seven 

1  Letters,  p.  137. 

2  Whittier  wrote  this  hymn  and  Bayard  Taylor  wrote  the 
Ode  for  the  Fourth  of  July  celebration. 


168  SIDNEY    LANIER 

months  ;  but  God  is  great.  Remember,  thou  and 
Cliff,  that  this  is  not  yet  to  be  spoken  of  at  all."  l 
With  enthusiasm  the  poet  entered  upon  the 
task  assigned  him.  The  progress  of  the  Cantata 
from  the  time  when  it  first  presented  itself  to 
his  mind  to  the  time  when  he  completed  it,  may 
be  traced  in  the  letters  to  Bayard  Taylor  and 
Gibson  Peacock,  which  have  already  been  pub 
lished.2  Writing  to  Mr.  Dudley  Buck,  January 
15,  1876,  he  said  :  - 

DEAR  MR.  BUCK,  —  I  send  you  herewith  the 
complete  text  for  the  Cantata.  I  have  tried  to 
make  it  a  genuine  Song,  at  once  full  of  fire  and 
of  large  and  artless  simplicity  befitting  a  young 
but  already  colossal  land. 

I  have  made  out  a  working  copy  for  you,  with 
marginal  notes  which  give  an  analysis  of  each 
movement  (or  rather  motive,  for  I  take  it  the 
whole  will  be  a  continuous  progression ;  and  I 
only  use  the  word  "  movement  "  as  indicating  the 
entire  contrast  which  I  have  secured  between 
each  two  .adjacent  motives),  and  which  will,  I 
hope,  facilitate  your  labor  by  presenting  an  out 
line  of  the  tones  characterizing  each  change  of 
idea.  One  movement  is  placed  on  each  page. 

Mr.  Thomas  was  kind  enough  to  express  him- 

1  Quoted  in  Baskervill's  Southern  Writers,  p.  200. 

2  See  Letters,  passim. 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     169 

self  very  cordially  as  to  the  ideas  of  the  piece  ; 
and  I  devoutly  trust  that  they  will  meet  your 
views.  I  found  that  the  projection  which  I  had 
made  in  my  own  mind  embraced  all  the  substan 
tial  features  of  the  Scheme  which  had  occurred  to 
you,  and  therefore,  although  greatly  differing  in 
details,  I  have  not  hesitated  to  avail  myself  of 
your  thoughtful  warning  against  being  in  any 
way  hampered.  It  wiU  give  me  keen  pleasure 
to  know  from  you,  as  soon  as  you  shall  have 
digested  the  poem,  that  you  like  it. 

God  send  you  a  soul  full  of  colossal  and  sim 
ple  chords,  —  says 

Yours  sincerely, 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 

In  another  letter,  of  February  1,  1876,  he 
wrote  :  "I  will  leave  the  whole  matter  of  the 
publication  of  the  poem  jn  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Thomas  and  yourself  ;  only  begging  that  the 
inclosed  copy  be  the  one  which  shall  go  to  the 
printer.  The  truth  is,  I  shrank  from  the  criti 
cism  which  I  fear  my  poem  will  provoke,  —  not 
because  I  think  it  unworthy,  but  because  I  have 
purposely  made  it  absolutely  free  from  all  melo 
dramatic  artifice,  and  wholly  simple  and  artless  ; 
and  although  I  did  this  in  the  full  consciousness 
that  I  would  thereby  give  it  such  a  form  as  would 
inevitably  cause  it  to  be  disappointing  on  the  first 


170  SIDNEY    LANIER 

reading  to  most  people,  yet  I  had  somewhat  the 
same  feeling  (when  your  unexpected  proposition 
to  print  first  came)  as  when  a  raw  salt  spray 
dashes  suddenly  in  your  face  and  makes  you 
duck  your  head.  As  for  my  own  private  poems, 
I  do  not  even  see  the  criticisms  on  them,  and  am 
far  above  the  plane  where  they  could  possibly 
reach  me ;  but  this  poem  is  not  mine,  it  is  to  re 
present  the  people,  and  the  people  have  a  right 
that  it  should  please  them." 

In  this  letter  Lanier  anticipates  the  criticism 
that  was  sure  to  come  upon  the  poem  when  printed 
without  the  music.  It  was  at  once  received 
with  ridicule  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The 
leading  critical  journal  of  America  exclaimed  : 
"  It  reads  like  a  communication  from  the  spirit 
of  Nat  Lee,  rendered  through  a  bedlamite  me 
dium,  failing  in  all  the  ordinary  laws  of  sense  and 
sound,  melody  and  prosody."  It  urged  the  com 
missioners  to  "  save  American  letters  from  the 
humiliation  of  presenting  to  the  assembled  world 
such  a  farrago  as  this."  For  several  weeks  La 
nier  could  not  pick  up  a  newspaper  without  see 
ing  his  name  held  up  to  ridicule,  the  Southern 
papers  alone,  out  of  purely  sectional  pride  and 
with  "  no  understanding  of  the  principles  in 
volved,"  coming  to  his  rescue.  The  spirit  in  which 
he  received  this  criticism  may  be  seen  in  a  let 
ter  written  to  his  brother :  — 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     171 

This  is  the  sixth  letter  I  've  written  since 
nine  o'clock  to  night,  and  it  is  like  saying  one's 
prayers  before  going  to  bed,  to  have  a  quiet  word 
with  you. 

Your  letter  came  to-day,  and  I  see  that  you 
have  been  annoyed  by  the  howling  of  the  critics 
over  the  Cantata.  I  was  greatly  so  at  first,  be 
fore  I  had  recovered  from  my  amazement  at  find 
ing  a  work  of  art  received  in  this  way,  sufficiently 
to  think,  but  now  the  whole  matter  is  quite 
plain  to  me  and  gives  me  no  more  thought, 
at  all.  .  .  . 

The  whole  agitation  has  been  of  infinite  value 
to  me.  It  has  taught  me,  in  the  first  place,  to 
lift  my  heart  absolutely  above  all  expectation 
save  that  which  finds  its  fulfillment  in  the  large 
consciousness  of  beautiful  devotion  to  the  high 
est  ideals  in  art.  This  enables  me  to  work  in 
tranquillity. 

In  the  second  place,  it  has  naturally  caused 
me  to  make  a  merciless  arraignment  and  trial  of 
my  artistic  purposes  ;  and  an  unspeakable  con 
tent  arises  out  of  the  revelation  that  they  come 
from  the  ordeal  confirmed  in  innocence  and 
clearly,  defined  in  their  relations  with  all 
things.  .  .  . 

The  commotion  about  the  Cantata  has  not 
been  unfavorable,  on  the  whole,  to  my  personal 
interests.  It  has  led  many  to  read  closely  what 


172  SIDNEY   LANIER 

they  would  otherwise  have  read  cursorily,  and  I 
believe  I  have  many  earnest  friends  whose  liking 
was  of  a  nature  to  be  confirmed  by  such  opposi 
tion.  .  .  . 

And  now,  dear  little  Boy,  may  God  convoy 
you  over  to  the  morning  across  this  night,  and 
across  all  nights,  Prays  your 

S.  L. 

That  the  poem  was  misjudged  cannot  be  de 
nied.  Lanier's  defense  published  in  the  New 
York  "  Tribune  "  must  be  taken  as  a  justification, 
in  part  at  least,  of  the  principles  he  had  in  mind.1 
It  was  not  written  as  a  poem,  —  and  Mrs.  Lanier 
has  wisely  put  it  as  an  appendix  to  her  edition 
of  the  poems,  —  but  as  the  words  of  a  musical 
composition  to  be  rendered  by  a  large  orchestra 
and  chorus.  It  compares,  therefore,  with  a  lyric 
very  much  as  one  of  the  librettos  of  a  Wagner 
drama  would  compare  with  a  genuine  drama.  It 
serves  merely  to  give  the  ideas  which  were  to 
be  interpreted  emotionally  through  the  forms  of 
music.  Lanier  knew  well  the  requirements  of 
an  orchestra.  He  knew  the  effect  of  contrasts 
and  of  short,  simple  words  which  would  ^uggest 
the  deeper  emotions  intended  by  the  author.  He 
thought  of  Beethoven's  "  large  and  artless  forms  " 
rather  than  that  of  formal  lyric  poetry.  He  had 

1  Music  and  Poetry,   p.  80. 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    173 

heard  Von  Billow  conduct  the  Peabody  Orches 
tra  in  a  symphony  based  on  one  of  Uhland's 
poems,  in  which  only  the  simple  elemental  words 
were  retained,  "  leaving  all  else  to  his  hearers' 
imaginations."  This  served  as  a  model  for  his 
Cantata. 

That  the  Cantata  was  a  success  is  borne  out  by 
contemporary  evidence.  The  very  paper  which 
had  criticised  Lanier  most  severely  said,  in  giv 
ing  an  account  of  the  opening  exercises,  "  The 
rendering  of  Lanier 's  Cantata  was  exquisite,  and 
Whitney's  bass  solo  deserves  to  the  full  ah1  the 
praise  that  has  been  heaped  upon  it."  Ex-Presi 
dent  Oilman  thus  writes  of  the  effect  produced 
on  the  vast  audience  assembled  in  Philadelphia : 

"  As  a  Baltimorean  who  had  just  formed  the 
acquaintance  of  Lanier  (both  of  us  being 
strangers  at  that  time  in  a  city  we  came  to  love 
as  a  most  hospitable  and  responsive  home),  —  I 
was  much  interested  in  his  appointment.  It  was 
then  true,  though  Dr.  Holmes  had  not  yet  said 
it,  that  Baltimore  had  produced  three  poems, 
each  of  them  the  best  of  its  kind:  the  'Star- 
Spangled  Banner'  of  Key,  'The  Raven,'  of  Poe, 
and  4  Maryland,  My  Maryland,'  by  Randall. 
Was  it  to  produce  a  fourth  poem  as  remarkable 
as  these?  Lanier's  Cantata  appeared  in  one  of 
the  daily  journals,  prematurely.  I  read  it  as  one 
reads  newspaper  articles,  with  a  rapid  glance, 


174  SIDNEY   LANIER 

and  could  make  no  sense  of  it.  I  heard  the 
comments  of  other  bewildered  critics.  I  read 
the  piece  again  and  again  and  again,  before  the 
meaning  began  to  dawn  on  me.  Soon  afterwards, 
Lanier's  own  explanation,  and  the  dawn  became 
daylight.  The  ode  was  not  written  4to  be  read.' 
It  was  to  be  sung  —  and  sung,  not  by  a  single 
voice,  with  a  piano  accompaniment,  but  in  the 
open  air,  by  a  chorus  of  many  hundred  voices, 
and  with  the  accompaniment  of  a  majestic  or 
chestra,  to  music  especial^  written  for  it  by  a 
composer  of  great  distinction.  The  critical  test 
would  be  its  rendition.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  Cantata  must  be  judged. 

"  I  remember  well  the  day  of  trial.  The  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  the  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
the  governors  of  States,  the  judges  of  the  high 
est  courts,  the  chief  military  and  naval  heroes, 
were  seated  on  the  platform  in  the  face  of  an 
immense  assembly.  There  was  no  pictorial  effect 
in  the  way  they  were  grouped.  They  were  a 
mass  of  living  beings,  a  crowd  of  black-coated 
dignitaries,  not  arranged  in  any  impressive  order. 
No  cathedral  of  Canterbury,  no  Sanders  Hall, 
no  episcopal  or  academic  gowns.  The  oratory 
was  likewise  ineffective.  There  were  loud  voices 
and  vigorous  gestures,  but  none  of  the  eloquence 
which  enchants  a  multitude.  The  devotional  ex 
ercises  awakened  no  sentiment  of  reverence.  At 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    175 

length  came  the  Cantata.  From  the  overture  to 
the  closing  cadence  it  held  the  attention  of  the 
vast  throng  of  listeners,  and  when  it  was  con 
cluded  loud  applause  rang  through  the  air.  A 
noble  conception  had  been  nobly  rendered. 
Words  and  music,  voices  and  instruments,  pro 
duced  an  impression  as  remarkable  as  the  ren 
dering  of  the  Hallelujah  Chorus  in  the  nave  of 
Westminster  Abbey.  Lanier  had  triumphed.  It 
was  an  opportunity  of  a  lifetime  to  test  upon  a 
grand  scale  his  theory  of  verse.  He  came  off 
victorious."  l 

The  most  important  thing,  however,  about  the 
writing  of  the  Cantata  was  that  it  gave  expres 
sion  to  a  strong  faith  in  the  nation  as  felt  by  one 
who  had  been  a  Confederate  soldier.  The  central 
note  of  the  poem  is  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  In  spite  of  all  the  physical  obstacles 
that  had  hindered  the  early  settlers,  in  spite  of 
the  distinct  individualities  of  the  various  people 
of  the  sections,  in  spite  of  sectional  misunder 
standings  which  had  led  in  the  process  of  time  to 
a  bloody  civil  war,  the  nation  had  survived.  All 
of  these  had  said,  "  No,  thou  shalt  not  be." 

Now  praise  to  God's  oft-granted  grace, 
Now  praise  to  man's  undaunted  face, 
Despite  the  land,  despite  the  sea, 
I  was  :  I  am  :  and  I  shall  be. 

1  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  April,  1905. 


176  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Lanier  desired,  however,  to  avoid  anything 
like  spread-eagleism,  and  so  after  the  chorus  of 
jubilation  just  quoted,  there  is  a  note  of  doubt 
as  to  how  long  the  nation  will  last.  The  answer, 
sung  by  the  Boston  soloist,  Myron  W.  Whitney, 
was  particularly  impressive :  — 

Long  as  thine  Art  shall  love  true  love, 
Long  as  thy  Science  truth  shall  know, 
Long  as  thine  Eagle  harms  no  Dove, 
Long  as  thy  Law  by  law  shall  grow, 
Long  as  thy  God  is  God  above, 
Thy  Brother  every  man  below, 
So  long,  dear  Land  of  all  my  love, 
"  Thy  name  shall  shine,  thy  fame  shall  glow  ! 

Soon  after  finishing  the  Centennial  Cantata, 
Lanier  started  upon  a  much  longer  centennial 
poem  which,  as  the  "  Psalm  of  the  West,"  was  pub 
lished  in  "  Lippincott's  Magazine,"  June,  1876, 
and  for  which  he  received  $300.  "  By  the  grace 
of  God,"  he  writes  to  Bayard  Taylor,  April  4, 
1876,  "  my  centennial  Ode  is  finished.  I  now 
only  know  how  divine  has  been  the  agony  of  the 
last  three  weeks,  during  which  I  have  been  rapt 
away  to  heights  where  all  my  own  purposes  as 
to  a  revisal  of  artistic  forms  lay  clear  before 
me,  and  where  the  sole  travail  was  of  choice  out 
of  multitude."  This  poem  was  written  with  the 
idea  of  a  symphony  in  his  mind.  One  of  the  last 
things  he  planned  was  to  write  the  music  for  it. 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     177 

The  poem  as  a  whole  is  a  musical  rhapsody 
rather  than  a  self-contained  work  of  art.  Al 
though  there  are  fancies  and  obscurities,  the  gen 
eral  theme,  the  magnificent  opening  lines,  and 
the  Columbus  sonnets,  with  here  and  there  lines 
of  imaginative  power,  make  it  noteworthy.  The 
poem  is  a  passionate  assertion  of  the  triumph  of 
freedom  in  America,  —  freedom,  the  Eve  of  this 
tall  Adam  of  lands. 

Her   shalt   thou   clasp   for  a  balm  to  the  scars  of   thy 

breast, 

Her  shalt  thou  kiss  for  a  calm  to  thy  wars  of  unrest, 
Her  shalt  extol  in  the  psalm  of  the  soul  of  the  West. 

Freedom  with  all  its  dangers  is  the  precious 
heritage  of  Americans.  "  For  Weakness,  in  free 
dom,  grows  stronger  than  Strength  with  a  chain." 
With  the  aid  of  the  God  of  the  artist  the  poet 
reviews  the  history  of  the  past,  beginning  with 
the  time  when  in  this  continent  "  Blank  was 
king  and  Nothing  had  his  will."  The  coming  of 
the  Northmen,  the  discovery  of  the  land  by  Co 
lumbus,  the  voyage  of  the  Mayflower, —  ship  of 
Faith's  best  hope, —  the  battle  of  Lexington,  the 
signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
the  opening  up  of  the  West,  are  all  chanted  in 
unrestrained  poetry.  The  Civil  War  is  described 
as  a  tournament :  — 

Heartstrong  South  would  have  his  way, 
Headstrong  North  hath  said  him  nay. 


178  SIDNEY  LANIER 

They  charged,  they  struck  ;  both  fell,  both  bled; 

Brain  rose  again,  ungloved; 
Heart  fainting  smiled  and  softly  said, 

My  love  to  my  Beloved. 

Heart  and  brain  !  no  more  be  twain; 
Throb  and  think,  one  flesh  again  ! 
Lo  !  they  weep,  they  turn,  they  run; 
Lo  !  they  kiss  :  Love,  thou  art  one. 

The   poem    closes   as    it   began,    with   the   tri 
umphant  vision  of  the  future :  — 

At  heart  let  no  man  fear  for  thee  : 
Thy  Past  sings  ever  Freedom's  song, 

Thy  Future's  voice  sounds  wondrous  free  ; 
And  Freedom  is  more  large  than  Crime, 
And  Error  is  more  small  than  Time. 

The  significance  of  the  national  spirit  in  these 
two  poems  may  be  seen  only  when  it  is  looked 
at  from  the  standpoint  of  the  sectionalism  that 
prevailed  in  the  South  and  in  the  North.  At  the 
very  time  when  Lanier  was  writing  them,  men  in 
Congress  were  giving  exhibitions  of  partisanship 
and  prejudice  that  threatened  to  make  of  the 
Centennial  a  farce.  "  The  fate  of  the  Centen 
nial  bill  in  Congress,"  he  writes  to  Dudley 
Buck,  "  reveals  —  in  spite  of  its  passage  — a  good 
deal  of  opposition.  All  this  will  die  out  in  a 
couple  of  months,  and  then  every  one  will  be 
in  a  temper  to  receive  a  poem  of  reconciliation. 
I  fancy  that  to  print  the  poem  now  will  be  much 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     179 

like  making  a  dinner  speech  before  the  wine  has 
been  around."  Indeed,  there  were  few  men  in 
America  at  this  time  who  really  understood  the 
significance  of  the  national  spirit.  Southern 
men,  smarting  under  reconstruction  governments 
and  bitter  with  the  prejudice  engendered  by  the 
war,  had  not  been  able,  except  in  rare  cases,  to 
rise  to  a  national  point  of  view.  The  sectional 
spirit  was  ready  to  break  out  at  any  time.  It  was 
but  natural.  In  the  Centennial  year  a  speaker 
at  the  University  of  Virginia  said  :  "  Not  space, 
or  time,  or  the  convenience  of  any  human 
arm,  can  reconcile  institutions  for  the  turbulent 
fanatic  of  Plymouth  Rock  and  the  God-fearing 
Christian  of  Jamestown.  .  .  .  You  may  assign 
them  to  the  closest  territorial  proximity,  with  all 
the  forms,  modes,  and  shows  of  civilization,  but  you 
can  never  cement  them  into  the  bonds  of  broth 
erhood."  On  the  other  hand,  the  leading  public 
men  of  the  North,  while  protesting  their  love  of 
the  Union  and  naturally  believing  in  the  Union, 
which  Northern  armies  had  saved,  had  little 
of  the  spirit  of  a  sympathetic  realization  of  the 
South's  problem  and  her  condition.  Only  in  a 
few  large-minded  publicists,  and  in  editors  like 
Godkin  and  poets  like  Lowell  and  Walt  Whit 
man,  did  the  national  spirit  prevail. 

Lanier  came  forward,  therefore,  at  a  critical 
time  to  express  his  passionate  faith  in  the  future 


180  SIDNEY  LANIER 

of  the  American  Union.  He  was  not  the  only 
Southerner,  however,  who  felt  this  way.  His 
two  friends,  Senators  Morgan  of  Alabama  and 
Lamar  of  Mississippi  (formerly  of  Georgia),  had 
been  stout  upholders  of  the  national  idea  in 
Congress.  As  early  as  1873  Lamar  had  paid 
a  notable  tribute  to  Charles  Sumner.  He  had 
risen  to  the  point  where  he  could  see  the  whole 
struggle  against  slavery  and  against  secession 
from  Sumner's  standpoint.  At  the  conclusion 
of  his  remarkable  address  he  said :  "  Bound  to 
each  other  by  a  common  constitution,  destined 
to  live  together  under  a  common  government, 
shall  we  not  now  at  last  endeavor  to  grow  toward 
each  other  once  more  in  heart,  as  we  are  already 
indissolubly  linked  in  fortunes?  .  .  .  Would 
that  the  spirit  of  the  illustrious  dead  whom  we 
lament  to-day  could  speak  from  the  grave  to 
both  parties  to  this  deplorable  discord  in  tones 
which  should  reach  every  heart  throughout  this 
broad  territory :  My  countrymen !  Know  one 
another,  and  you  will  love  one  another."  In  1876 
he  made  an  extended  argument  for  the  Centen 
nial  bill,  an  eloquent  plea  against  the  old  States'- 
rights  arguments.  "  He  poured  out,"  says  his 
biographer,  "an  exposition  of  nationalism  and 
constitutionalism  which  equaled  in  effect  one  of 
Webster's  masterpieces."  "  As  a  representative 
of  the  South,"  Lamar  said  at  a  later  time,  "  I 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    181 

felt  myself,  with  my  Southern  associates,  to  be  a 
joint  heir  of  a  mighty  and  glorious  heritage  of 
honor  and  responsibility." 

It  was  in  this  spirit  and  to  voice  the  better 
sentiment  of  the  South,  that  Lanier  eagerly  re 
sponded  to  the  invitation  to  write  the  Centennial 
poems.  He  had  fought  with  valor  in  the  Con 
federate  armies,  hoping  to  the  last  that  they  would 
be  victorious.  He  had  suffered  all  the  poverty 
and  humiliation  of  reconstruction  days,  but  he 
had  risen  out  of  sectionalism  into  nationalism.  It 
is  a  striking  fact  that  the  two  poets  who  are  the 
least  sectional  of  all  American  poets  —  for  even 
Lowell  never  saw  Southern  life  and  Southern 
problems  from  a  national  point  of  view  —  were 
Walt  Whitman  and  Lanier,  the  only  two  poets 
of  first  importance  who  took  part  in  the  Civil 
War.  It  is  also  significant,  that  in  Lanier 's 
"  Psalm  of  the  West "  we  have  a  Southerner 
chanting  the  glory  of  freedom,  without  any 
chance  of  having  the  slavery  of  a  race  to  make 
the  boast  a  paradox. 

«  Corn,"  "  The  Symphony,"  and  the  «  Psalm 
of  the  West,"  with  a  few  shorter  poems,  were 
published  in  a  volume  in  the  fall  of  1876  (the 
volume  bore  the  date  1877,  however).  Reserving 
the  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the  volume  for  a 
future  chapter,  I  wish  now  to  give  some  idea  of 
Lanier 's  widening  acquaintance  with  men  of  cul- 


182  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ture  and  of  letters.  The  first  man  of  prominence 
to  herald  him  as  a  new  poet  was,  as  has  been 
seen,  Mr.  Gibson  Peacock.  The  correspondence 
between  them  is  well  known  to  all  students  of 
Lanier.1  Mr.  Peacock  "  had  read  widely  the 
best  English  literature,  was  familiar  with  the 
modern  languages,  had  traveled  far  in  this 
country  and  in  Europe,  and  had  cultivated  him 
self  not  less  in  dramatic  criticism  than  in  books." 
He  brought  to  Lanier  financial  aid  at  critical 
times  in  his  life ;  but  more  than  that,  his  home 
in  Philadelphia  was  as  a  second  home  to  the 
poet  in  those  years  before  he  had  settled  in  Bal 
timore,  when,  as  he  wrote  Hayne,  he  was  "  as 
homeless  as  the  ghost  of  Judas  Iscariot."  Mrs. 
Peacock  —  a  good  linguist,  a  highly  skilled  musi 
cian,  and  withal  a  most  magnetic  personality  — 
joined  with  her  husband  in  his  hearty  friendship 
for  the  newly  discovered  poet.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Figaniere,  Portu 
guese  minister  to  this  country.  In  their  home 
were  entertained  all  the  first-rate  artistic  peo 
ple  who  came  to  Philadelphia,  such  as  Salvini, 
Charlotte  Cushman,  Bayard  Taylor,  and  others. 
It  was  a  home  in  which  music  and  literature 
were  highly  honored,  and  here  Lanier  met  some 
of  the  most  interesting  people  then  living  in 
Philadelphia,  such  as  John  Foster  Kirk,  editor 

1  See  Letters. 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     183 

of  "  Lippincott's  Magazine,"  Charles  Heber 
Clarke  —  "  big,  heartsome,  '  Max  Adeler '  "  — 
and  others. 

Soon  after  meeting  Mr.  Peacock  and  his  wife, 
Lanier  was  sought  out  by  Charlotte  Cushman  on 
one  of  her  trips  to  Baltimore.  She  had  been 
much  interested  in  reading  "  Corn,"  and  was  so 
attracted  by  the  personality  of  the  author  (as  he 
was  by  her),  that  an  intimate  friendship  sprang 
up  between  them,  growing  in  intensity  until  her 
death,  February  18, 1876.  She  had  but  recently 
been  greeted  with  a  great  ovation  in  New  York 
city,  at  a  meeting  in  which  Joseph -Jefferson  had 
represented  the  stage  and  Bryant  and  Stoddard 
the  realm  of  letters.  The  ovation  was  repeated 
in  the  cities  of  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 
"  Though  coming  into  the  circle  of  her  friend 
ships  during  the  latter  years  of  her  life,  when 
she  had  become  famous  throughout  the  English- 
speaking  world,  Lanier  won  for  himself  there  a 
warm  and  high  place,"  says  her  biographer. 
There  was  much  to  attract  the  two  to  each,  other. 
Both  had  the  highest  ideals  of  their  art ;  for  to 
Miss  Cushman  as  to  Lanier,  art  was  a  sacred 
thing.  "  I  know,"  she  said,  "  He  does  not  fail  to 
set  me  his  work  to  do  and  help  me  to  do  it  and 
help  others  to  help  me."  Furthermore,  they  were 
both  sufferers  from  an  incurable  malady,  and 
both  victors  over  it  in  a  certain  serene  spirit 


184  SIDNEY   LANIER 

which  transcended  suffering.  Her  words  are 
paralleled  by  many  of  Lanier's :  "  I  know  my 
enemy ;  he  is  ever  before  me  and  he  must  con 
quer,  but  I  cannot  give  up  to  him ;  I  laugh  in 
his  face  and  try  to  be  jolly  —  and  I  am  !  I 
declare  I  am  even  when  he  presses  me  hardest." 
She  talked  much  with  him  of  the  great  men  she 
had  known  and  discussed  with  him  the  ideals  of 
art. 

Lanier  threw  himself  into  this  friendship  with 
characteristic  ardor.  He  gave  her  the  manuscript 
copies  of  his  poems  and  dedicated  the  first  volume 
to  her,  greeting  her  as  "Art's  artist,  Love's 
dear  woman,  Fame's  good  queen."  During  1875 
he  wrote  many  letters  to  her,  letters  full  of  chiv 
alry  and  love  and  humility.  Some  of  these  tell 
the  story  of  his  life  during  the  months  of  1875 
so  well,  and  are  at  the  same  time  so  characteristic, 
that  I  quote  :  — 

BRUNSWICK,  GA.,  June  17,  1875. 

It  is  only  seldom,  dear  Miss  Cushman,  that  I 
can  bring  myself  to  such  a  point  of  daring  as  to 
ask  that  you  will  stretch  out  your  tired  arms 
merely  to  take  one  of  my  little  roses,  —  you  whose 
hands  are  already  filled  with  the  best  flowers  this 
world  can  grow. 

Does  she  not  (I  say  to  myself)  find  them 
under  her  feet  and  wear  them  about  her  brows  ; 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     185 

may  she  not  walk  on  them  by  day  and  lie  on 
them  by  night,  nay,  does  not  her  life  stand  rooted 
in  men's  regard  like  one  pistil  in  a  great  lily? 

But  sometimes  I  really  cannot  help  making 
love  to  you,  just  for  one  little  intense  minute ; 
there  is  a  certain  Communistic  temper  always 
adhering  in  true  love  which  will  occasionally 
break  out  and  behead  all  the  Royal  Proprieties 
and  hang  Law  to  the  first  lamp-post :  it  is  even 
now  so,  my  heart  is  a  little  '93,  aux  armes  ! 
Where  is  this  minister  that  imprisons  us,  away 
from  our  friends,  in  the  Bastile  of  Separation, 
let  him  die,  —  and  as  for  Silence,  that  luxurious 
tyrant  that  collects  all  the  dead  for  his  taxes,  be 
hold,  I  am  even  now  pricking  him  to  a  terrible 
death  with  the  point  of  this  good  pen. 

When  one  is  in  a  state  of  insurrection,  one 
makes  demands  :  mine  is  that  you  write  me,  dear 
friend,  if  you  are  quite  recovered  from  the 
fatigues  of  Baltimore  and  of  Boston,  and  if  you 
have  not  nourished  yourself  to  new  strength  in 
feeding  upon  the  honeys  the  people  brought  you 
there  so  freely. 

Copies  of  "  The  Symphony  "  have  been  ordered 
sent  to  you  and  Miss  Stebbins,  and  I  have  the 
MS.  copy  which  you  desired,  ready  to  transmit 
to  you.  You  will  be  glad  to  know  that  "  The  Sym 
phony  "  has  met  with  favor.  The  "  Power  of 


186  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Prayer  "  in  "  Scribner's  "  for  June  —  although  the 
editor  cruelly  mutilated  the  dialect  in  some  places, 
turning,  for  instance,  "  Marster  "  (which  is  pure 
Alabama  negro)  into  Mah'sr  (which  is  only  Dan 
Bryant  negro,  and  does  not  exist  in  real  life)  — 
has  gone  all  over  the  land,  and  reappears  before 
my  eyes  in  frequent  heart-breaking  yet  comical 
disguises  of  misprints  and  disfigurements.  Tell 
me ;  ought  one  to  be  a  little  ashamed  of  writing 
a  dialect  poem,  —  as  at  least  one  newspaper  has 
hinted  ?  And  did  Robert  Burns  prove  himself 
no  poet  by  writing  mostly  in  dialect  ?  And  is 
Tennyson's  "  Death  of  the  North  Country  Far 
mer  "  —  certainly  one  of  the  very  strongest  things 
he  ever  wrote  —  not  a  poem,  really  ? 

Mr.  Peacock's  friendship,  in  the  matter  of 
"  The  Symphony,"  as  indeed  in  all  others,  has 
been  wonderful,  a  thing  too  fine  to  speak  of  in 
prose. 

To-morrow  I  go  to  Savannah,  and  hope  to  find 
there  a  letter  from  Miss  Stebbins.    Tell  me  of 
her,  when  you  write  :  and  tell  her,  from  me,  how 
truly  and  faithfully  I  am  her  and 
Your  friend, 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 

PHILADELPHIA,  PA.,  July  31,  1875. 

It  was  so  good  of  you,  my  dear  friend,  to  write 
me  in  the  midst  of  your  suffering,  that  it  amounts 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER     187 

to  a  translation  of  pain  into  something  beautiful ; 
and  with  this  thought  I  console  myself  for  the 
fear  lest  your  exertion  may  have  caused  you  some 
pang  that  might  have  been  spared. 

I  long  to  hear  from  you ;  though  Miss  Steb- 
bins's  letter  brought  me  a  good  account  from  your 
physician  about  you.  If  tender  wishes  were  but 
medicinal,  if  fervent  aspirations  could  but  cure, 
if  my  daily  upward  breathings  in  your  behalf 
were  but  as  powerful  as  they  are  earnest,  — 
how  perfect  would  be  your  state  ! 

I  have  latterly  been  a  shuttlecock  betwixt 
two  big  battledores  —  New  York  and  Florida. 
I  scarcely  dare  to  recall  how  many  times  I  have 
been  to  and  fro  these  two  States  in  the  last  six 
weeks.  It  has  been  just  move  on,  all  the  time  : 
car  dust,  cinders,  the  fumes  of  hot  axle  grease, 
these  have  been  my  portion  ;  and  between  them 
I  have  almost  felt  sometimes  as  if  my  soul  would 
be  asphyxiated.  But  I  now  cease  to  wander  for 
a  month,  with  inexpressible  delight.  To-morrow 
I  leave  here  for  Brooklyn,  where  I  will  be  en 
gaged  in  hard  labor  for  a  month,  namely,  in  fin 
ishing  up  the  Florida  book.  .  .  . 

I  am  very  glad  to  find  my  "  Symphony  "  copied 
in  full  in  Dwight's  "Journal  of  Music:  "  and  I  am 
sure  you  will  care  to  know  that  the  poem  has 
found  great  favor  in  all  parts  of  the  land.  I 
have  the  keenest  desire  to  see  some  English  judg- 


188  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ment  on  this  poem ;  but  not  the  least  idea  how 
to  compass  that  end.  Can  you  make  me  any  sug 
gestion  in  that  behalf? 

I  am  full  curious  to  hear  you  talk  about 
Tennyson's  "  Queen  Mary."  Nothing  could  be 
more  astonishing  than  the  methods  of  treatment 
with  which  this  production  has  been  disposed  of, 
in  the  few  criticisms  I  have  seen  upon  it.  One 
critic  declared  that  it  was  a  good  poem  but  no 
drama ;  another  avers  decidedly  that  it  is  a  fine 
drama,  but  not  a  poem ;  while  the  "  Nation  "  man 
thinks  that  it  is  neither  a  poem  nor  a  drama, 
but  a  sort  of  didactic  narrative  intended  to  be  in 
the  first  place  British,  and,  in  the  second  place, 
a  warning  against  the  advancing  powers  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  There  is  but  a  solitary  thread 
of  judgment  in  common  among  these  criticisms. 

I  cannot  tell  you  with  how  much  delight  I 
read  the  account  of  Sidney  Dobell,  nor  with 
how  much  loving  recognition  I  took  into  my 
heart  all  the  extracts  from  his  poems  given  in 
the  review.  I  am  going  to  read  all  his  poems 
when  my  little  holiday  comes,  I  hope  in  Sep 
tember,  and  I  will  send  you  then  some  organ 
ized  and  critical  thanks  for  having  introduced 
me  to  so  noble  and  beautiful  a  soul.  .  .  . 

As  for  you,  my  dear  Queen  Catherine,  may 
this  velvety  night  be  spread  under  your  feet  even 
as  Raleigh's  cloak  was  spread  for  his  queen's,  so 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    189 

that  you  may  walk  dry  shod  as  to  all  pain  over 
to  the  morning,  —  prays 

Your  faithful  SIDNEY  LANIER. 


195  DEAN  ST.,  BROOKLYN,  N.  Y., 
August  15,  1875. 

I  did  not  dream,  my  dear  friend,  of  giving  you 
anything  in  the  least  approaching  the  nature  of 
a  worry,  —  in  asking  you  for  a  suggestion  as  to 
the  best  method  of  piercing  the  British  hearts 
of  oak ;  and  you  must  not  "  think  about  it  "  as 
you  declare  you  are  going  to  do  —  for  a  single 
minute.  Indeed,  I  had,  in  mentioning  it  to  you, 
no  more  definite  idea  in  my  head  than  that  per 
haps  you  might  know  somebody  who  knew  some 
body  that  knew  somebody  that  .  .  .  etc.,  etc.,  ad 
infinitum  .  .  .  that  might  .  .  .  and  then  my  idea 
of  what  the  somebody  was  to  do,  completely  faded 
into  vague  nothing. 

It  is  n't  worth  thinking  about,  to  you ;  and 
I  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  what  I  want  will 
finally  come,  in  just  such  measure  as  I  shall 
deserve. 

The  publishers  have  limited  me  in  time  so 
rigorously,  quoad  the  Florida  book,  that  I  will 
have  to  work  night  and  day  to  get  it  ready.  I 
do  not  now  see  the  least  chance  for  a  single  day 
to  devote  to  my  own  devices  before  the  fifth  or 
sixth  of  September. 


190  SIDNEY   LANIER 

And  I  do  so  long  to  see  you  and  Miss  Steb- 
bins ! 

Out  of  the  sombre  depths  of  a  bottomless  sea 
of  Florida  statistics  in  which  I  am  at  this  present 
floundering,  pray  accept,  my  liege  Queen,  in  art 
as  in  friendliness,  all  such  loyal  messages  and 
fair  reports  compacted  of  love,  as  may  come  from 
so  dull  a  waste  of  waters ;  graciously  resting  in 
your  mind  upon  nothing  therein  save  the  true 
faithful  allegiance  of  your  humble  knight  and 
subject,  SIDNEY  L. 

In  November,  1875,  he  visited  her  for  a  week 
at  the  Parker  House  in  Boston.  Though  she  was 
at  that  time  critically  ill,  she  was  "  fairly  over 
flowing  with  all  manner  of  tender  and  bright  and 
witty  sayings."  "  Each  day,"  he  wrote,  "  was 
crowded  with  pleasant  things  which  she  and  her 
numerous  friends  had  prepared  for  me."  On  this 
visit  to  Boston  Lanier  spent  two  "  delightful  after 
noons  "  with  Lowell  and  Longfellow.  Of  this 
visit  Lowell  afterwards  wrote  President  Oilman  : 
"  He  was  not  only  a  man  of  genius  with  a  rare 
gift  for  the  happy  word,  but  had  in  him  quali 
ties  that  won  affection  and  commanded  respect. 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  but  once,  when 
he  called  on  me  '  in  more  gladsome  days,'  at 
Elmwood,  but  the  image  of  his  shining  presence 
is  among  the  friendliest  in  my  memory." 


[Facsimile  of  letter  to  Charlotte  Ciishman} 

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BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    191 

Lanier  returned  from  Boston  and  on  New 
Year's  day  sent  a  greeting  to  Miss  Cushman. 
It  is  quoted  as  an  illustration  of  Lanier's  con 
siderate  regard  for  his  friends,  which  expressed 
itself  in  many  delicate  ways,  especially  on  anni 
versaries  and  special  seasons  of  the  year.  It  is 
an  Elizabethan  sonnet  in  prose  :  — 

If  this  New  Year  that  approaches  you  (more 
happy  than  I,  who  cannot)  did  but  know  you  as 
well  as  I  (more  happy  than  he,  who  does  not) 
he  would  strew  his  days  about  you  even  as 
white  apple-blossoms  and  his  nights  as  blue-black 
heart's-ease ;  for  then  he  should  be  your  true 
faithful-serving  lover  —  as  am  I  —  and  should 
desire  —  as  I  do  —  that  the  general  pelting  of 
time  might  become  to  you  only  a  tender  rain  of 
such  flowers  as  foretell  fruit  and  of  such  as 
make  tranquil  beds. 

But  though  I  cannot  teach  this  same  New 
Year  to  be  the  servant  of  my  fair  wishes,  I  can 
persuade  him  to  be  the  bearer  of  them ;  and  I 
trust  he  and  these  words  will  come  to  you  to 
gether  ;  giving  you  such  report,  and  so  freshly 
from  my  heart,  as  shall  confirm  to  you  that  my 
message,  though  greatly  briefer  than  my  love, 
is  yet  greatly  longer  than  I  would  the  interval 
were,  which  stands  betwixt  you  and  your  often- 
longing,  S.  L. 


192  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Another  friend  that  Mr.  Peacock  interested  in 
Lanier  was  Bayard  Taylor,  who  was  the  means 
of  bringing  the  poet  into  the  world  of  letters,  and 
became  one  of  the  most  inspiring  influences  in  his 
life.  Taylor  had  been  a  very  prominent  figure 
in  the  literary  world  for  over  twenty-five  years, 
as  author,  translator,  traveller,  diplomatist,  and 
lecturer.  To  meet  him  was  like  the  fulfillment 
of  a  dream  to  a  man  who  had  lived  all  his  life 
outside  of  literary  circles,  and  Taylor's  encour 
aging  words  to  Lanier  were  "  as  inspiriting  as 
those  from  a  strong  swimmer  whom  one  perceives 
far  ahead,  advancing  calmly  and  swiftly." 
Taylor,  on  the  other  hand,  was  glad  to  extend  the 
young  poet's  acquaintance  among  those  whom 
he  had  a  right  to  know.  Through  him  Lanier 
attended  the  Goethe  celebration,  August  28, 
1875,  and  was  admitted  to  the  Century  Club,  of 
which  Bryant  was  at  that  time  president,  and 
where  Taylor,  Stoddard,  Stedman,  and  "many 
other  good  fellows  "  frequently  met.  What  this 
meant  to  Lanier  is  shown  in  the  following  quo 
tation  :  — 

"  As  to  pen  and  ink,  and  all  toil,  I  Ve  been 
almost  suppressed  by  continued  illness.  I  can't 
tell  you  how  much  I  sigh  for  some  quiet  evenings 
at  the  Century,  where  I  might  hear  some  of  you 
talk  about  the  matters  I  love,  or  merely  sit  and 
think  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  thinkers.  I  fancy 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    193 

one  can  almost  come  to  know  the  dead  thinkers 
too  well :  a  certain  mournfulness  of  longing 
seems  sometimes  to  peer  out  from  behind  one's 
joy  in  one's  Shakespeare  and  one's  Chaucer,  — 
a  sort  of  physical  protest  and  yearning  of  the 
living  eye  for  its  like.  Perhaps  one's  friendship 
with  the  dead  poets  comes  indeed  to  acquire 
something  of  the  quality  of  worship,  through  the 
very  mystery  which  withdraws  them  from  us  and 
which  allows  no  more  messages  from  them,  cry 
how  we  will,  after  that  sudden  and  perilous 
Stoppage.  I  hope  those  are  not  illegitimate 
moods  in  which  one  sometimes  desires  to  sur 
round  one's  self  with  a  companionship  less  awful, 
and  would  rather  have  .a  friend  than  a  god."  l 

Mr.  Stedman  has  recorded  his  impression  of 
Lanier  as  he  met  him  at  Bayard  Taylor's :  "  I 
saw  him  more  than  once  in  the  study  of  our 
lamented  Deucalion,  —  the  host  so  buoyant  and 
sympathetic,  the  Southerner  nervous  and  eager, 
with  dark  hair  and  silken  beard,  features  deli 
cately  moulded,  pallid  complexion,  and  hands  of 
the  slender,  white,  artistic  type."  The  friendship 
between  Lanier  and  Taylor  was  no  less  cherished 
by  the  older  poet.  He  rejoiced  to  recognize  in 
Lanier  "a  new,  true  poet  —  such  a  poet  as  I 
believe  you  to  be  —  the  genuine  poetic  nature, 
temperament,  and  morale."  He  was  heartily  glad 

1  Letters,  p.  171. 


194  SIDNEY   LANIER 

to  welcome  him  into  the  fellowship  of  authors. 
He  gave  him  some  valuable  criticism  as  to  the 
details  of  his  work,  and  encouraged  him  by  show 
ing  him  that  the  struggle  through  which  he  was 
passing  was  identical  with  his  own.  He,  too,  had 
to  resort  to  pot-boiling  and  hack  work  of  all  kinds, 
and  he  had  also  been  severely  criticised  by  the 
same  men  who  now  criticised  Lanier.  So  he  closed 
many  of  his  letters  with  the  inspiriting  words  : 
"  Be  of  good  cheer !  On !  be  bold !  "  The  friend 
ship  which  began  as  a  literary  friendship  soon 
developed  on  Taylor's  part,  as  well  as  Lanier 's, 
into  one  of  deep  personal  regard.  Taylor  recog 
nized,  as  did  every  other  man  who  came  in  per 
sonal  touch  with  Lanier,  the  charm  and  the 
fineness  of  his  personality. 

By  the  summer  of  1876  Lanier  had  thus  es 
tablished  himself  as  a  promising  man  of  letters. 
He  had  not  only  written  poetry  that  had  at 
tracted  attention,  but  he  had  found  a  place  among 
a  group  of  artists  who  recognized  the  value  of  his 
work  and  the  charm  of  his  personality.  When 
Charlotte  Cushman  died,  he  had  the  promise  that 
he  would  be  employed  by  her  family  to  write 
her  life.  Upon  the  basis  of  this  promise  he 
brought  his  family  North,  and  they  settled  down 
at  Chadd's  Ford,  Pennsylvania.  Soon  afterwards, 
however,  he  received  the  disappointing  news  that 
Miss  Stebbins,  on  account  of  ill  health,  could 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    195 

not  fulfill  her  part  of  the  contract,  namely,  to  go 
over  the  correspondence  of  Miss  Cushman.  This 
was  a  severe  blow  to  him,  and  probably  had 
something  to  do  with  his  breakdown  in  health. 
He  spent  several  weeks  at  Mr.  Peacock's  in 
Philadelphia,  attended  by  the  best  physicians  in 
the  city.  He  was  planning  to  go  back  to  Balti 
more  to  resume  his  place  in  the  orchestra,  when 
he  was  told  that  he  must  go  at  once  to  Florida  if 
he  wished  to  save  his  life.  He  went,  attended  by 
his  wife,  and  they  spent  the  winter  there  and  the 
spring  in  Brunswick  and  Macon.  The  letters 
written  by  him  to  Mr.  Peacock  and  Bayard 
Taylor  are  among  the  best  he  ever  wrote,  full 
as  they  are  of  sunshine  and  hope.  A  few  ex 
tracts  are  given  : l  — 

" 1  have  found  a  shaggy  gray  mare  upon 
whose  back  I  thrid  the  great  pine  forests  daily, 
much  to  my  delight.  Nothing  seems  so  restora 
tive  to  me  as  a  good  gallop." 

"  What  would  I  not  give  to  transport  you  from 
your  frozen  sorrows  instantly  into  the  midst  of 
the  green  leaves,  the  gold  oranges,  the  glitter  of 
great  and  tranquil  waters,  the  liberal  friendship 
of  the  sun,  the  heavenly  conversation  of  robins 
and  mocking-birds  and  larks,  which  fill  my  days 
with  delight !  " 

"  In  truth  I  *  bubble  song '  continually  during 

1  Letters  passim. 


196  SIDNEY   LANIER 

these  heavenly  days,  and  it  is  as  hard  to  keep 
me  from  the  pen  as  a  toper  from  his  tipple." 

"  I  have  at  command  a  springy  mare,  with 
ankles  like  a  Spanish  girl,  upon  whose  back  I  go 
darting  through  the  green  overgrown  woodpaths, 
like  a  thrasher  about  his  thicket.  The  whole  air 
feels  full  of  fecundity :  as  I  ride  I  am  like  one 
of  those  insects  that  are  fertilized  on  the  wing,  — 
every  leaf  that  I  brush  against  breeds  a  poem. 
God  help  the  world  when  this  now-hatching 
brood  of  my  Ephemerae  shall  take  flight  and 
darken  the  air." 

"  I  long  to  be  steadily  writing  again.  I  am 
taken  with  a  poem  pretty  nearly  every  day,  and 
have  to  content  myself  with  making  a  note  of  its 
train  of  thought  on  the  back  of  whatever  letter 
is  in  my  coat-pocket.  I  don't  write  it  out,  be 
cause  I  find  my  poetry  now  wholly  unsatisfactory 
in  consequence  of  a  certain  haunting  impatience 
which  has  its  root  in  the  straining  uncertainty 
of  my  daily  affairs ;  and  I  am  trying  with  all  my 
might  to  put  off  composition  of  all  sorts  until 
some  approach  to  the  certainty  of  next  week's 
dinner  shall  remove  this  remnant  of  haste,  and 
leave  me  that  repose  which  ought  to  fill  the 
artist's  firmament  while  he  is  creating." 

They  returned  to  the  North  in  June  and  spent 
another  summer  at  Chadd's  Ford,  —  a  place 
of  great  natural  beauty.  "As  for  me,"  says 


BEGINNING  A  LITERARY  CAREER    197 

Lanier,  "  all  this  loveliness  of  wood,  earth,  and 
water  makes  me  feel  as  if  I  could  do  the 
whole  Universe  into  poetry ;  but  I  don't  want  to 
write  anything  large  for  a  year  or  so.  And  thus 
I  content  myself  with  throwing  off  a  sort  of  spray 
of  little  songs,  whereof  the  magazines  now  have 
several." 

Notwithstanding  his  illness,  then,  the  year 
ending  with  September,  1877,  was  one  of  marked 
productivity.  He  wrote  "  Waving  of  the  Corn," 
44 Under  the  Cedarcroft  Chestnut,"  "From  the 
Flats,"  "The  Mocking-Bird,"  "Tampa  Robins," 
"  The  Bee,"  "  A  Florida  Sunday,"  "  The  Stirrup- 
Cup,"  "To  Beethoven,"  "The  Dove,"  "The 
Song  of  the  Chattahooche,"  and  "  An  Evening 
Song."  He  was  in  a  fair  way  to  realize  his  am 
bition  with  regard  to  poetry.  Again,  however, 
he  was  to  be  deflected  from  his  course,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  find  "  fresh  woods  and  pastures 


CHAPTER  VIII 

STUDENT    AND    TEACHER    OF    ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

WHEN  Lanier  returned  from  Florida  he  tried 
to  get  various  positions  which  might  enable  him 
to  secure  a  livelihood.  A  lectureship  at  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  —  about  which  President 
Gilman  had  talked  with  him  in  1876  —  a  libra 
rian's  position  in  the  Peabody  Library,  and  a 
place  in  some  of  the  departments  of  the  govern 
ment  in  Washington,  —  all  these  were  sought  for 
in  vain.  One  of  the  saddest  commentaries  on 
the  condition  of  political  life  in  the  seventies  is 
that  Lanier  was  not  able  to  secure  even  a  clerk 
ship  in  any  department.  The  days  of  civil  service 
reform  and  the  time  when  a  commissioner  of 
civil  service  would  urge  the  application  for  gov 
ernment  positions  by  Southern  men  had  not  yet 
come.  "Inasmuch,"  Lanier  says  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Gibson  Peacock,  June  13,  1877,  "as  I 
had  never  been  a  party  man  of  any  sort,  I  did 
not  see  with  what  grace  I  could  ask  any  ap 
pointment  ;  and  furthermore  I  could  not  see  it 
to  be  delicate,  on  general  principles,  for  me  to 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   199 

make  personal  application  for  any  particular 
office.  .  .  .  My  name  has  been  mentioned  to 
Mr.  Sherman  (and  to  Mr.  Evarts,  I  believe)  by 
quite  cordially  disposed  persons.  But  I  do  not 
think  any  formal  application  has  been  entered, 
—  though  I  do  not  know.  I  hope  not ;  for  then 
the  reporters  will  get  hold  of  it,  and  I  scarcely 
know  what  I  should  do  if  I  could  see  my  name 
figuring  alongside  of  Jack  Brown's  and  Foster 
Blodgett's  and  the  others  of  my  native  State."  * 
It  was  the  same  year  in  which  Bayard  Taylor  was 
nominated  as  minister  to  Germany  and  Lowell 
as  minister  to  Spain,  but  Lanier  could  not  obtain 
a  consulate  to  France  or  even  the  humblest  posi 
tion,  "  seventy-five  dollars  a  month  and  the  like," 
in  any  department  in  Washington. 

Under  these  circumstances  he  wrote  what  are 
perhaps  the  most  pathetic  words  in  all  his  letters. 
44  Altogether,"  he  says,  "  it  seems  as  if  there 
was  n't  any  place  for  me  in  this  world,  and  if  it 
were  not  for  May  I  should  certainly  quit  it,  in 
mortification  at  being  so  useless."  2  He  did  not 
remain  in  this  mood  long,  however.  He  settled 
in  Baltimore  with  his  family  in  November,  1877, 
in  four  rooms  arranged  somewhat  as  a  French 
flat,  and  a  little  later  in  a  cottage,  about  which 
he  writes  enthusiastically  to  his  friends.  There 
is  no  better  illustration  of  his  playfulness  and 

1  Letters,  p.  43.  2  Letters,  p.  46. 


200  SIDNEY   LANIER 

his  ability  to  get  the  most  out  of  everything  than 
his  letter  to  Gibson  Peacock :  — 


33  DENMEAD  ST.,  BALTIMORE,  MD., 
January  6,  1878. 

The  painters,  the  whitewashes,  the  plumbers, 
the  locksmiths,  the  carpenters,  the  gas-fitters,  the 
stove-put-up-ers,  the  carmen,  the  piano-movers, 
the  carpet-layers,  —  all  these  have  I  seen,  bar 
gained  with,  reproached  for  bad  jobs,  and  finally 
paid  off :  I  have  also  coaxed  my  landlord  into  all 
manner  of  outlays  for  damp  walls,  cold  bath 
rooms,  and  other  like  matters :  I  have  further 
more  bought  at  least  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
seven  household  utensils  which  suddenly  came  to 
be  absolutely  necessary  to  our  existence :  I  have 
moreover  hired  a  colored  gentlewoman  who  is 
willing  to  wear  out  my  carpets,  burn  out  my 
range,  freeze  out  my  water-pipes,  and  be  gener 
ally  useful :  I  have  also  moved  my  family  into 
our  new  home,  have  had  a  Xmas  tree  for  the 
youngsters,  have  looked  up  a  cheap  school  for 
Harry  and  Sidney,  have  discharged  my  daily 
duties  as  first  flute  of  the  Peabody  Orchestra, 
have  written  a  couple  of  poems  and  part  of  an 
essay  on  Beethoven  and  Bismarck,  have  accom 
plished  at  least  a  hundred  thousand  miscellaneous 
necessary  nothings,  —  and  have  not,  in  conse 
quence  of  the  aforesaid,  sent  to  you  and  my  dear 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  201 

Maria  the  loving  greetings  whereof  my  heart  has 
been  full  during  the  whole  season.  Maria's  cards 
were  duly  distributed,  and  we  were  all  touched 
with  her  charming  little  remembrances.  With 
how  much  pleasure  do  I  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  I  may  kiss  her  hand  in  my  own  house  ! 
We  are  in  a  state  of  supreme  content  with  our 
new  home :  it  really  seems  to  me  as  incredible 
that  myriads  of  people  have  been  living  in  their 
own  homes  heretofore  as  to  the  young  couple 
with  a  first  baby  it  seems  impossible  that  a  great 
many  other  couples  have  had  similar  prodigies. 
It  is  simply  too  delightful.  Good  heavens,  how 
I  wish  that  the  whole  world  had  a  Home ! 

I  confess  I  am  a  little  nervous  about  the  gas- 
bills,  which  must  come  in,  in  the  course  of  time ; 
and  there  are  the  water-rates,  and  several  sorts  of 
imposts  and  taxes  :  but  then,  the  dignity  of  being 
liable  for  such  things  (!)  is  a  very  supporting- 
consideration.  No  man  is  a  Bohemian  who  has 
to  pay  water-rates  and  a  street-tax.  Every  day 
when  I  sit  down  in  my  dining-room  —  my  dining- 
room  !  —  I  find  the  wish  growing  stronger  that 
each  poor  soul  in  Baltimore,  whether  saint  or 
sinner,  could  come  and  dine  with  me.  How  I 
would  carve  out  the  merry  thoughts  for  the  old 
hags  !  How  I  would  stuff  the  big  wall-eyed  rascals 
till  their  rags  ripped  again  !  There  was  a  knight 
of  old  times  who  built  the  dining-hall  of  his  castle 


202  SIDNEY    LANIER 

across  the  highway,  so  that  every  wayfarer  must 
perforce  pass  through :  there  the  traveler,  rich 
or  poor,  found  always  a  trencher  and  wherewithal 
to  fill  it.  Three  times  a  day,  in  my  own  chair  at 
my  own  table,  do  I  envy  that  knight  and  wish 
that  I  might  do  as  he  did.1 

He  was  soon  to  find  another  joy  in  the  study 
of  Old  and  Middle  English  literature,  which  he 
entered  upon  with  unbounded  zest  and  energy. 
As  has  been  seen  in  previous  chapters,  Lanier 
had  been  all  his  life  a  reader  of  the  best  books. 
Before  he  came  to  Baltimore  to  live  he  had 
impressed  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  with  his  un 
usually  thorough  knowledge  of  Chaucer  and  the 
Elizabethan  poets.  He  was  also  familiar  with 
modern  English  literature.  Now,  however,  he 
was  to  begin  the  study  of  literature  in  a  syste 
matic  and  more  scholarly  way.  A  distinct  ad 
vance  in  his  intellectual  life  must,  therefore,  be 
dated  from  the  winter  of  1877-78,  when  he  began 
to  study  English  with  the  aid  of  the  Peabody 
Library. 

For  purposes  of  research  this  library  was, 
during  Lanier's  lifetime,  one  of  the  best  in 
America.  Mr.  Peabody  indicated  its  character 
when  he  said,  in  his  announcement  of  the  gift, 
that  it  was  to  be  "  well  furnished  in  every  de- 
1  Letters,  p.  49. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH    LITERATURE  203 

partment  of  knowledge,  to  be  for  the  free  use 
of  all  persons  who  may  desire  to  consult  it,  to 
satisfy  the  researches  of  students  who  may  be 
engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  not  ordi 
narily  obtainable  in  the  private  libraries  of  the 
country."  It  was  modeled  on  the  plan  of  the 
British  Museum,  and  he  was  anxious  to  "  engraft 
in  Baltimore  the  offshoots  of  the  highest  culture 
obtainable  in  the  great  capitals  of  Europe."  In 
accordance  with  his  idea,  the  provost,  Dr.  Mori- 
son,  had  in  the  selection  of  the  library  consulted 
specialists  in  the  leading  universities  of  the  coun 
try.  Besides  containing  the  scientific  journals  in 
the  various  departments  of  human  learning,  it 
was  especially  rich  in  the  publications  of  the 
Early  English  Text  Society,  the  Chaucer  Society, 
the  Percy  Society,  and  in  the  reprints  of  Eliza 
bethan  literature  made  by  Alexander  B.  Grosart 
and  other  English  scholars.  There  had  been 
some  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  citizens  of 
Baltimore  that  the  library  could  not  be  of  more 
general  use.  To  meet  this  Dr.  Morison  said  in 
1871  :  "  We  cannot  create  scholars  or  readers 
to  use  our  library,  but  we  can  make  a  collection 
of  books  which  all  scholars  will  appreciate,  when 
they  shall  appear  among  us  as  they  surely  will 
some  day."  This  prophecy  was  fulfilled  when 
Johns  Hopkins  University  was  established  in 
1876.  In  addition  to  the  excellent  collection  of 


204  SIDNEY   LANIER 

book,s  there  was  a  carefully  prepared  catalogue, 
which  made  the  investigator's  task  much  easier. 

To  the  Peabody  thus  furnished  and  arranged, 
Lanier  came  with  an  eagerness  of  mind  that  few 
men  have  had.  Writing  to  J.  F.  Kirk,  August 
24,  1878,  he  said,  speaking  of  an  edition  of 
Elizabethan  sonnets  which  he  was  preparing: 
"  I  have  found  the  Peabody  Library  here  a  rich 
mine  in  the  collection  of  material  for  my  book, 
especially  as  affording  sources  for  the  presenta 
tion  of  the  anonymous  poems  in  the  early  col 
lections  which  are  very  interesting."  He  always 
expressed  himself  as  grateful  that  he  could  find 
his  working  material  so  easily  accessible. 

Of  his  habits  of  study  one  of  the  assistant 
librarians  says  :  "  He  usually  came  in  the  morn 
ing,  occupying  the  same  seat  at  the  end  of  the 
table,  where  he  worked  until  lunch  time,  so  ab 
sorbed  with  his  studies  that  he  scarcely  ever  raised 
his  eyes  to  notice  anything  around  him.  During 
the  winters  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Peabody 
Orchestra  he  came  back  in  the  afternoons  when 
the  rehearsals  were  held,  bringing  his  flute  with 
him,  and  continued  his  studies  until  it  was  time 
to  go  into  the  rehearsal.  He  continued  in  this 
way  until  his  increasing  weakness  prevented  him 
from  leaving  home,  when  he  would  write  notes  to 
the  desk  attendants  asking  them  to  verify  some 
reference,  or  copy  some  extract  for  him,  and  fre- 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   205 

quently  his  wife  would  come  to  the  library  to  do 
the  copying  for  him."  1 

This  library  was  Lanier's  university.  While 
other  Southerners  were  finding  their  way  to  Ger 
man  universities,  he  was  training  himself  in  the 
methods  and  ideals  of  the  modern  scholar.  The 
dream  of  his  college  days  was  being  fulfilled- 
He  lacked  the  patient  and  careful  training  of 
men  who  have  a  lifetime  to  devote  to  some 
special  field  of  work.  He  could  not  in  the  short 
time  at  his  disposal  explore  the  fields  of  learning 
which  he  entered.  Into  those  two  or  three  years 
of  study  and  research,  however,  were  .crowded 
results  and  attainments  that  many  less  gifted 
men,  working  with  less  prodigious  zest  and 
power,  do  not  reach  in  a  decade. 

Writing  to  Bayard  Taylor,  October  20,  1878, 
he  said :  "  Indeed,  I  have  been  so  buried  in  study 
for  the  past  six  months  that  I  know  not  news 
nor  gossip  of  any  kind.  Such  days  and  nights 
of  glory  as  I  have  had !  I  have  been  studying 
Early  English,  Middle  English,  and  Elizabethan 
poetry,  from  Beowulf  to  Ben  Jonson  :  and  the 
world  seems  twice  as  large."  2  No  sooner  had  he 
begun  this  work  than  he  desired  to  communicate 
to  others  his  own  pleasure  in  English  literature. 
In  March,  1878,  he  began  a  series  of  lectures  at 
the  residence  of  Mrs.  Edgworth  Bird,  who  had 

1  Letter  of  Mr.  John  Park  to  the  author.     2  Letters,  p.  214. 


206  SIDNEY   LANIER 

welcomed  him  to  her  home  when  he  first  came 
to  Baltimore.  These  lectures  on  Elizabethan 
poetry  were  attended  by  many  of  the  most  promi 
nent  men  and  women  of  the  city.  The  following 
winter  Lanier  arranged  for  a  series  of  lectures 
at  the  Peabody  Institute.  "  In  the  spring  of 
1878,"  says  one  of  his  friends,  "  I  was  speaking 
of  the  desultory  study  which  women  so  often  do 
and  of  how  much  better  it  would  be  if  all  this 
energy  could  be  directed  to  some  definite  end. 
He  said :  '  That  is  just  what  I  am  purposing. 
Next  winter  I  am  going  to  have  a  Shakespearean 
revival  for  women,'  and  he  then  proceeded  to 
tell  me  of  the  prospective  lectures."  He  had 
become  imbued  with  the  idea  that  much  might 
be  done  in  the  way  of  establishing  "  Schools 
for  Grown  People  "  in  all  the  leading  cities  of 
America.  He  writes  to  Gibson  Peacock  :  — 

180  ST.  PAUL  ST.,  BALTIMORE,  MD., 
November  5,  1878. 

I  have  been  "  allowing  "  —  as  the  Southern  ne 
groes  say  —  that  I  would  write  you,  for  the  last 
two  weeks ;  but  I  had  a  good  deal  to  say,  and 
have  n't  had  time  to  say  it. 

During  my  studies  for  the  last  six  or  eight 
months  a  thought  which  was  at  first  vague  has 
slowly  crystallized  into  a  purpose,  of  quite  de 
cisive  aim.  The  lectures  which  I  was  invited  to 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   207 

deliver  last  winter  before  a  private  class  met 
with  such  an  enthusiastic  reception  as  to  set  me 
thinking  very  seriously  of  the  evident  delight 
with  which  grown  people  found  themselves  re 
ceiving  systematic  instruction  in  a  definite  study. 
This  again  put  me  upon  reviewing  the  whole 
business  of  Lecturing  which  has  risen  to  such 
proportions  in  our  country,  but  which,  every  one 
must  feel,  has  now  reached  its  climax  and  must 
soon  give  way  —  like  all  things  —  to  something 
better.  The  fault  of  the  lecture  system  as  at 
present  conducted  —  a  fault  which  must  finally 
prove  fatal  to  it  —  is  that  it  is  too  fragmentary, 
and  presents  too  fragmentary  a  mass  —  indigesta 
moles  —  of  facts  before  the  hearers.  Now  if, 
instead  of  such  a  series  as  that  of,  the  popular 
Star  Course  (for  instance)  in  Philadelphia,  a 
scheme  of  lectures  should  be  arranged  which 
would  amount  to  the  systematic  presentation  of 
a  given  subject,  then  the  audience  would  receive 
a  substantial  benefit,  and  would  carry  away  some 
genuine  possession  at  the  end  of  the  course.  The 
subject  thus  systematically  presented  might  be 
either  scientific  (as  Botany,  for  example,  or  Bi 
ology  popularized,  and  the  like)  or  domestic 
(as  detailed  in  the  accompanying  printed  extract 
under  the  "  Household  "  School)  or  artistic  or 
literary. 

This   stage   of   the  investigation  put  me  to 


208  SIDNEY   LANIER 

thinking  of  schools  for  grown  people.  Men  and 
women  leave  college  nowadays  just  at  the  time 
when  they  are  really  prepared  to  study  with 
effect.  There  is  indeed  a  vague  notion  of  this 
abroad,  but  it  remains  vague.  Any  intelligent 
grown  man  or  woman  readily  admits  that  it 
would  be  well  —  indeed,  many  whom  I  have  met 
sincerely  desire  —  to  pursue  some  regular  course 
of  thought ;  but  there  is  no  guidance,  no  organ 
ized  means  of  any  sort,  by  which  people  engaged 
in  ordinary  avocations  can  accomplish  such  an 
aim. 

Here,  then,  seems  to  be,  first,  a  universal  ad 
mission  of  the  usefulness  of  organized  intellectual 
pursuit  for  business  people ;  secondly,  an  under 
lying  desire  for  it  by  many  of  the  people  them 
selves  ;  and  thirdly,  an  existing  institution  (the 
lecture  system)  which,  if  the  idea  were  once 
started,  would  quickly  adapt  itself  to  the  new 
conditions.  In  short,  the  present  miscellaneous 
lecture  courses  ought  to  die  and  be  born  again 
as  Schools  for  Grown  People. 

It  was  with  the  hope  of  effecting  at  least  the 
beginning  of  a  beginning  of  such  a  movement 
that  I  got  up  the  "  Shakespeare  Course  "  in  Bal 
timore.  I  wished  to  show,  to  such  a  class  as  I 
could  assemble,  how  much  more  genuine  profit 
there  would  be  in  studying  at  first  hand,  under 
the  guidance  of  an  enthusiastic  interpreter,  the 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   209 

writers  and  conditions  of  a  particular  epoch  (for 
instance)  than  in  reading  any  amount  of  commen 
tary  or  in  hearing  any  number  of  miscellaneous 
lectures  on  subjects  which  range  from  Palestine 
to  Pottery  in  the  course  of  a  week.  With  this 
view  I  arranged  my  own  part  of  the  Shakespeare 
course  so  as  to  include  a  quite  thorough  presen 
tation  of  the  whole  science  of  poetry  as  prepara 
tory  to  a  serious  and  profitable  study  of  some  of 
the  greatest  singers  in  our  language.1 

In  accordance  with  this  idea  he  drew  up  a 
scheme  for  four  independent  series  of  class  lec 
tures,  directed  particularly  to  the  systematic 
guidance  of  persons  —  especially  ladies  —  who 
wished  to  extend  the  scope  of  their  culture. 
There  were  to  be  schools  of  (1)  English  Liter 
ature,  (2)  the  Household,  (3)  Natural  Science, 
and  (4)  Art.  Thirty  lectures  were  to  be  given 
in  each  school,  he  to  give  those  on  English  Lit 
erature.  He  hoped  that  he  would  be  able  to 
arrange  for  such  series  in  Washington,  Phila 
delphia,  and  Southern  cities.  This  scheme  is 
a  striking  anticipation  of  popular  lectures  that 
have  been  given  in  New  York  city  during  the 
past  few  years,  as  well  as  of  the  University  Ex 
tension  lectures  since  established  at  the  Univer 
sity  of  Chicago,  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  other  American  universities. 

1  Letters,  p.  53. 


210  SIDNEY   LANIER 

The  only  part  of  the  scheme  that  took  shape 
was  the  Shakespeare  course  planned  for  the  Pea- 
body  Institute.  In  addition  to  twenty-four  lec 
tures  by  Lanier,  two  lectures  were  to  be  given  by 
Prof.  B.  L.  Gildersleeve,  — "  one  on  the  Timon 
of  Lucian,  compared  with  Timon  of  Shakespeare, 
and  one  on  Macbeth  and  Agamemnon ;  two  on 
the  State  of  Natural  Science  in  Shakespeare's 
Time,  by  Prof.  Ira  Remsen ;  two  on  Religion  in 
Shakespeare's  Time,  by  Dr.  H.  B.  Adams  ;  two 
readings  from  Marlowe's  Faust  and  three  lec 
tures  on  the  Mystery  Plays  as  illustrated  by  the 
Oberammergau  Passion  Play,  by  Prof.  E.  G. 
Daves ;  and  three  lectures  on  the  Early  English 
Comedy  as  illustrated  by  Gammer  Gurton's 
Needle  and  Ralph  Royster  Doyster,  by  Col. 
Richard  M.  Johnston." 

Of  these  only  Lanier 's  lectures  were  given, 
and  they  did  not  prove  to  be  a  financial  success, 
although  they  accomplished  much  good  in  Bal 
timore.  Published  as  they  have  been  recently,1 
they  are  among  the  most  valuable  aids  in  the 
study  of  Lanier's  personality  and  of  his  attitude 
to  literature.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
they  were  not  written  for  publication,  nor  for 
an  academic  audience,  and  that  the  only  proper 
way  to  estimate  them  is  to  compare  them  with 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 
1903. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  211 

lectures  of  a  similar  kind,  —  Lowell's  Lowell 
Institute  lectures,  for  instance.  Viewed  from 
this  standpoint,  one  cannot  but  marvel  at  the 
carefulness  with  which  Lanier  prepared  his  lec 
tures,  and  the  vital  interest  he  took  in  work 
which  has  been  disagreeable  to  men  of  similar 
temperament.  Any  one  who  expects  to  find  in 
them  contributions  to  present  day  knowledge  of 
the  subjects  touched  upon  will  be  disappointed ; 
but  no  one  can  read  them  without  enjoying  the 
poet's  nai' ve  enthusiasm  and  his  clear  insight  into 
things  that  many  a  plodder  never  sees,  nor  can  he 
fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  modernness  of  his 
mind.  He  must  have  been  a  successful  teacher,  — 
he  uses  every  effort  to  fix  the  attention  of  his 
hearers,  he  summarizes  frequently,  illustrates, 
vitalizes  his  subject. 

There  is  evident  throughout  these  lectures  the 
most  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  literature  and 
of  its  place  in  the  life  of  the  world.  Few  men 
ever  enjoyed  reading  more  than  Lanier.  He 
knew  something  of  Stevenson's  joy  of  being 
"  rapt  clean  out  of  himself  by  a  book,"  —  the 
process  was  "  absorbing  and  voluptuous."  And 
this  enthusiasm  he  shared  with  all  his  hearers. 
After  much  criticism  of  the  scientific  type  by 
followers  of  Arnold  and  Brunetiere,  after  many 
class-room  lectures  and  recitations,  in  which  the 
spiritual  value  of  literature  has  been  lost  sight 


212  SIDNEY   LANIER 

of,  it  is  altogether  refreshing  to  read  the  almost 
childlike  expressions  of  Lanier.  One  feels  often 
that  the  worship  of  what  he  calls  his  "  sweet 
masters "  is  overdone,  and  that  he  praises  far 
too  highly  some  obscure  sonneteer ;  but  there  is 
in  his  work  the  spirit  of  the  romantic  critic  — 
the  zest  of  Charles  Lamb  and  Hazlitt  for  the  old 
masters.  Lowell,  speaking  of  a  period  in  his 
own  life  when  he  was  delivering  his  early  lec 
tures  at  Lowell  Institute,  said :  "  Then  I  was  at 
the  period  in  life  when  thoughts  rose  in  covies, 
...  a  period  of  life  when  it  does  n't  seem  as  if 
everything  has  been  said  ;  when  a  man  overesti 
mates  the  value  of  what  specially  interests  him 
self,  .  .  .  when  he  conceives  himself  a  mission 
ary,  and  is  persuaded  that  he  is  saving  his 
fellows  from  the  perdition  of  their  souls  if  he 
convert  them  from  belief  in  some  a3sthetic  heresy. 
That  is  the  mood  of  mind  in  which  one  may  read 
lectures  with  some  assurance  of  success.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  pleasant  peril  of  enthusiasm."  There 
could  not  be  a  better  description  of  Lanier's  lec 
tures.  Longfellow,  referring  to  some  lectures  on 
Dante  which  he  had  repeated  often,  said  :  "  It 
is  become  an  old  story  to  me.  I  am  tired." 
Lanier  knew  nothing  of  this  ennui.  He  fretted 
at  times  over  the  fact  that  he  had  to  give  to 
work  of  this  kind  the  time  he  might  have  given 
to  his  poetry,  but  there  is  not  in  his  lectures  a 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  213 

single  note  of  weariness ;  there  is  always  the 
freshness  and  exuberance  of  youth,  the  joy  of 
discovery,  of  interpretation,  of  illuminating  com 
ment. 

He  had  the  power  of  making  even  the  older 
English  literature  vital  to  a  popular  audience. 
An  Anglo-Saxon  poem  was  not  to  him  primarily 
material  for  the  study  of  philology,  although  he 
now  and  then  tried  to  interest  his  hearers  in 
the  etymology  of  words  —  it  was  a  revelation  of 
the  life  of  a  race  in  its  childhood.  While  he 
lost  in  technical  precision,  he  gave  the  listener  a 
real  grip  on  some  old  poem  by  which  he  could 
always  remember  it  and  relate  it  to  other  things. 
A  few  pages  on  "  Beowulf,"  for  instance,  present 
ing  some  specially  striking  scenes  therefrom  in  a 
translation  that  in  rhythm  and  substance  pre 
serves  the  spirit  of  the  original,  would  incite  the 
members  of  his  audience  to  at  least  a  literary  study 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  epic.  By  contrasting  "  The 
Address  of  the  Soul  to  the  Dead  Body"  with 
"  Hamlet,"  he  gave  his  hearers  some  clue  to  its 
interpretation  —  he  related  it  to  an  elementary 
religious  mood. 

Is  not  this  passage  calculated  to  make  one 
realize  the  real  meaning  of  "  Beowulf,"  —  espe 
cially  when  accompanied  by  admirable  transla 
tions  ? 

"  To  our  old  ancestors  there  were  many  times 


214  SIDNEY   LANIER 

when  Nature  must  have  seemed  a  true  Grendel's 
mother,  a  veritable  hag,  mindful  of  mischief; 
and  these  monsters  are  not  silly  inventions, — 
they  are  true  types,  ideals,  removed  very  far, 
if  you  please,  yet  born  of  the  old  struggle  of  man 
against  the  wild  beast  for  his  meat,  against  the 
stern  earth  for  his  bread,  against  the  cold  that 
cracks  his  skin  and  wracks  his  bones,  against  the 
wind  that  whirls  his  ship  over  in  the  sea,  the 
wave  that  drowns  him,  the  lightning  that  con 
sumes  him.  .  .  . 

"  And  so,  as  I  said,  there  is  to  me  an  inde 
scribable  pathos  in  these  sombre  pictures  of 
Nature  in  our  old  Beowulf  here,  —  these  drear 
marshes,  these  monster-haunted  meres,  that  boil 
with  blood  and  foam  with  tempests,  these  fast- 
rooted,  joyless  woods  that  overlean  the  waters, 
these  enormous,  nameless  beasts  that  lie  along 
on  promontories  all  day  and  wreak  vengeance 
on  ships  at  night  —  have  you  not  seen  them, 
headlands  running  out  into  the  sea  like  great 
beasts  with  their  forepaws  extended?  And  is  it 
not  a  huge  Gothic  picture  of  the  wind  rushing 
down  the  windy  nesse  ...  in  the  evening,  and 
whelming  the  frail  ships  of  the  old  Dane,  the 
old  Jute  and  Frisian  and  Saxon,  in  the  sea? 
All  these,  I  say,  are  mere  outcroppings  of  the 
rude  war  which  was  not  yet  ended  against  Na 
ture,  traces  of  a  time  when  Nature  was  still  a 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   215 

savage  Mother  of  Grendel,  tearing  and  devour 
ing  the  sons  of  men."  1 

Lanier  believed  strongly  that  the  early  Eng 
lish  poems  ought  to  be  taught  in  schools  and  col 
leges.  The  following  passage  does  not  sound  as 
revolutionary  now  as  it  did  in  1879  :  — 

"  Surely  it  is  time  our  popular  culture  were 
cited  into  the  presence  of  the  Fathers.  That  we 
have  forgotten  their  works  is  in  itself  matter 
of  mere  impiety  which  many  practical  persons 
would  consider  themselves  entitled  to  dismiss  as 
a  purely  sentimental  crime ;  but  ignorance  of 
their  ways  goes  to  the  very  root  of  growth. 

"  I  count  it  a  circumstance  so  wonderful  as  to 
merit  some  preliminary  setting  forth  here,  that 
with  regard  to  the  first  seven  hundred  years  of 
our  poetry  we  English-speaking  people  appear 
never  to  have  confirmed  ourselves  unto  ourselves. 
While  we  often  please  our  vanity  with  remark 
ing  the  outcrop  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  our 
modern  physical  achievements,  there  is  certainly 
little  in  our  present  art  of  words  to  show  a  liter 
ary  lineage  running  back  to  the  same  ancestry. 
Of  course  it  is  always  admitted  that  there  was 
an  English  poetry  as  old  to  Chaucer  as  Chaucer 
is  to  us ;  but  it  is  admitted  with  a  certain  in 
clusive  and  amateur  vagueness  removing  it  out 
of  the  rank  of  facts  which  involve  grave  and  im- 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  55. 


216  SIDNEY   LANIER 

portant  duties.  We  can  neither  deny  the  fact 
nor  the  strangeness  of  it,  that  the  English  poetry 
written  between  the  time  of  Aldhelm  and 
Csedmon  in  the  seventh  century  and  that  of 
Chaucer  in  the  fourteenth  century  has  never  yet 
taken  its  place  by  the  hearths  and  in  the  hearts  of 
the  people  whose  strongest  prayers  are  couched 
in  its  idioms.  It  is  not  found  in  the  tatters  of 
use,  on  the  floors  of  our  children's  playrooms ; 
there  are  no  illuminated  boy's  editions  of  it ;  it 
is  not  on  the  booksellers'  counters  at  Christmas  ; 
it  is  not  studied  in  our  common  schools ;  it  is 
not  printed  by  our  publishers ;  it  does  not  lie 
even  in  the  dusty  corners  of  our  bookcases  ;  nay, 
the  pious  English  scholar  must  actually  send  to 
Germany  for  Grein's  Bibliothek  in  order  to  get 
a  compact  reproduction  of  the  body  of  Old  Eng 
lish  poetry. 

"  One  will  go  into  few  moderately  appointed 
houses  in  this  country  without  finding  a  Homer 
in  some  form  or  other ;  but  it  is  probably  far 
within  the  truth  to  say  that  there  are  not  fifty 
copies  of  Beowulf  in  the  United  States.  Or 
again,  every  boy,  though  far  less  learned  than 
that  erudite  young  person  of  Macaulay's,  can 
give  some  account  of  the  death  of  Hector  ;  but 
how  many  boys  —  or,  not  to  mince  matters,  how 
many  men  —  in  America  could  do  more  than 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   217 

stare  if  asked  to  relate  the  death  of  Byrhtnoth  ? 
Yet  Byrhtnoth  was  a  hero  of  our  own  England 
in  the  tenth  century,  whose  manful  fall  is  re 
corded  in  English  words  that  ring  on  the  soul 
like  arrows  on  armor.  Why  do  we  not  draw  in 
this  poem  —  and  its  like  —  with  our  mother's 
milk  ?  Why  have  we  no  nursery  songs  of  Beo 
wulf  and  the  Grendel  ?  Why  does  not  the  seri 
ous  education  of  every  English-speaking  boy 
commence,  as  a  matter  of  course,  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  grammar  ?  " l 

There  would  come  from  such  study  a  strength 
ening  of  English  prose  and  a  deepening  of  cul 
ture.  He  continues  : — 

"  For  the  absence  of  this  primal  Anglicism 
from  our  modern  system  goes  —  as  was  said  — 
to  the  very  root  of  culture.  The  eternal  and  im 
measurable  significance  of  that  individuality  in 
thought  which  flows  into  idiom  in  speech  becomes 
notably  less  recognized  among  us.  We  do  not 
bring  with  us  out  of  our  childhood  the  fibre  of 
idiomatic  English  which  our  fathers  bequeathed 
to  us.  A  boy's  English  is  diluted  before  it  has  be 
come  strong  enough  for  him  to  make  up  his  mind 
clearly  as  to  the  true  taste  of  it.  Our  literature 
needs  Anglo-Saxon  iron,  —  there  is  no  ruddiness 

1  Music  and  Poetry,  p.  136.  This  quotation  is  an  expansion 
of  one  in  the  lectures  now  under  consideration.  He  evidently 
overstates  his  point,  but  the  passage  suggests  what  the  study 
of  old  English  meant  to  Lanier  himself. 


218  SIDNEY  LANIER 

in  its  cheeks,  and  everywhere  a  clear  lack  of  the 
red  corpuscles." 

Lanier  was  more  thoroughly  at  home  in  the 
Elizabethan  age,  however.  He  reveled  in  its 
myriad-mindedness  —  its  adventures  and  exploits, 
its  chivalry  and  romance.  The  sonnets  especially 
appealed  to  him,  for  they  abounded  in  conceits. 
One  of  the  striking  characteristics  that  he  noted 
in  the  leading  men  of  that  age  was  the  union  of 
strength  and  tenderness.  "  All  this  love-making 
was  manly,"  he  says.  "  It  was  then  as  it  is  now, 
that  the  bravest  are  the  tenderest.  .  .  .  Stout 
and  fine  Walter  Raleigh  pushes  over  to  America, 
quite  as  ready  to  sigh  a  sonnet  as  to  plant  a  col 
ony.  Valorous  Philip  Sidney,  who  can  write  as 
dainty  a  sonnet  as  any  lover  of  them  all,  can  at 
the  same  time  dazzle  the  stern  eyes  of  warriors 
with  deeds  of  manhood  before  Ziitphen  and  touch 
their  hearts  to  pity  and  admiration  as  he  offers 
the  cup  of  water  —  himself  being  grievously 
wounded  and  in  a  rage  of  thirst  —  to  the  dying 
soldier  whose  necessity  is  greater  than  his.  Men's 
minds  in  this  time  were  employed  with  big  ques 
tions  ;  the  old  theory  of  the  universe  is  just  losing 
its  long  hold  upon  the  intellect,  and  people  are 
busy  with  all  space,  trying  to  apprehend  the  re 
lation  of  their  globe  to  the  solar  system.  To  all 
this  ferment  the  desperate  conflict  of  the  Catho 
lic  religion  with  the  new  form  of  faith  now  com- 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   219 

ing  in  adds  an  element  of  stern  strength  ;  men 
are  pondering  not  only  the  physical  relation  of 
the  earth  to  the  heavens,  but  the  spiritual  rela 
tion  of  the  soul  to  heaven  and  hell.  This  is  no 
dandy  period."  l 

"  And  if  any  one  should  say  there  is  not  time 
to  read  these  poets,"  he  says  in  a  strain  of  ex 
cessive  admiration,  "  I  reply  with  vehemence  that 
in  any  wise  distribution  of  your  moments,  after 
you  have  read  the  Bible  and  Shakspere,  you  have 
no  time  to  read  anything  until  you  have  read 
these  .  .  .  old  artists.  They  are  so  noble,  so 
manful,  so  earnest ;  they  have  put  into  such  perfect 
music  that  protective  tenderness  of  the  rugged 
man  for  the  delicate  woman  which  throbs  all 
down  the  muscles  of  the  man's  life  and  turns 
every  deed  of  strength  into  a  deed  of  love ;  they 
have  set  the  woman,  as  woman,  upon  such  ador 
able  heights  of  worship,  and  by  that  act  have  so 
immeasurably  uplifted  the  whole  plane  upon 
which  society  moves  ;  they  have  given  to  all  ear 
nest  men  and  strong  lovers  such  a  dear  ritual  and 
litany  of  chivalric  devotion ;  they  have  sung  us 
such  a  high  mass  of  constancy  for  our  love ;  they 
have  enlightened  us  with  such  celestial  revelation 
of  the  possible  Eden  which  the  modern  Adam 
and  Eve  may  win  back  for  themselves  by  faith 
ful  and  generous  affection  ;  that  —  I  speak  it 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  168. 


220  SIDNEY   LANIER 

with  reverence  —  they  have  made  another  re 
ligion  of  loyal  love  and  have  given  us  a  second 
Bible  of  womanhood." l 

Following  his  study  of  the  sonnet-writers  of 
the  Elizabethan  age,  comes  a  somewhat  technical 
study  of  the  pronunciation  of  Shakespeare's  time 
—  a  restatement  of  Ellis's  monumental  work  on 
that  subject.  His  discussion  of  music  in  Shake 
speare's  time  has  already  been  noticed.  He  next 
tried  to  reproduce  for  his  class  the  domestic  life 
of  the  age,  commenting  in  full  on  the  sermons, 
the  plays,  the  customs  of  the  time.  In  order  to 
give  unity  to  this  study,  he  sketches  in  a  some 
what  fanciful  way  the  boyhood  of  Shakespeare  in 
Stratford  and  his  early  manhood  in  London. 
The  most  important  part  of  the  lectures,  how 
ever,  is  his  discussion  of  the  growth  of  Shake 
speare's  mind  and  art,  a  study  made  possible  by 
recent  publications  of  the  New  Shakespeare  So 
ciety.  Lanier  never  wrote  any  more  vigorous  or 
eloquent  prose  than  these  chapters,  although  it 
must  be  said  that  he  makes  too  much  of  the 
dramatist's  personality  as  revealed  in  his  plays. 
Two  passages  are  quoted  to  indicate  in  the  first 
place  the  standpoint  from  which  he  studied  the 
plays,  and  in  the  second  place  to  show  his  concep 
tion  of  the  moral  height  attained  by  Shakespeare 
as  compared  with  contemporary  dramatists  :  — 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i.  p.  7. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  221 

«'  The  keenest  scholarship,  the  freest  discus 
sion,  the  widest  search  for  external  evidence, 
the  most  careful  checking  of  conclusions  by  the 
Metrical  Tests  one  after  another,  have  all  been 
applied  to  establish  this  general  succession  in 
time  of  these  three  plays  ; 1  and  it  is  not  in  the 
least  necessary  to  commit  ourselves  to  the  exact 
years  here  given  in  order  to  feel  sure  that  these 
three  plays  represent  three  perfectly  distinct 
epochs,  separated  from  each  other  by  several 
years,  in  Shakspere's  spiritual  existence.  .  .  . 

"In  short,  the  young  eye  already  sees  the 
twist  and  cross  of  life,  but  sees  it  as  in  a  dream : 
and  those  of  you  who  are  old  enough  to  look 
back  upon  your  own  young  dream  of  life  will 
recognize  instantly  that  the  dream  is  the  only 
term  which  represents  that  unspeakable  seeing 
of  things,  without  in  the  least  realizing  them, 
which  brings  about  that  the  youth  admits  all  we 
tell  —  we  older  ones  —  about  life  and  the  future, 
and,  admitting  it  fully,  nevertheless  goes  on  right 
in  the  face  of  it  to  act  just  as  if  he  knew  no 
thing  of  it.  In  short,  he  sees  as  in  a  dream.  It  is 
the  Dream  Period.  But  here  suddenly  the  dream 
is  done,  the  real  pinches  the  young  dreamer  and 
he  awakes.  This,  too,  is  typical.  Every  man  re 
members  the  time  in  his  own  life,  somewhere 
from  near  thirty  to  forty,  when  the  actual  oppo- 

1  The  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Hamlet,  and  The  Tempest. 


222  SIDNEY   LANIER 

sitions  of  life  came  out  before  Mm  and  refused 
to  be  danced  over  and  stared  him  grimly  in  the 
face  :  God  or  no  God,  faith  or  no  faith,  death  or 
no  death,  honesty  or  policy,  men  good  or  men 
evil,  the  Church  holy  or  the  Church  a  fraud,  life 
worth  living  or  life  not  worth  living,  —  this,  I 
say,  is  the  shock  of  the  real,  this  is  the  Hamlet 
period  in  every  man's  life. 

"  And  finally,  —  to  finish  this  outline,  —  just 
as  the  man  settles  all  these  questions  shocked 
upon  him  by  the  real,  will  be  his  Ideal  Period. 
If  he  finds  that  the  proper  management  of  these 
grim  oppositions  of  life  is  by  goodness,  by  humil 
ity,  by  love,  by  the  fatherly  care  of  a  Prospero 
for  his  daughter  Miranda,  by  the  human  tender 
ness  of  a  Prospero  finding  all  his  enemies  in  his 
power  and  forgiving  their  bitter  injuries  and 
practicing  his  art  to  right  the  wrongs  of  men 
and  to  bring  all  evil  beginnings  to  happy  issues, 
then  his  Ideal  Period  is  fitly  represented  by  this 
heavenly  play,  in  which,  as  you  recall  its  plot, 
you  recognize  all  these  elements.  Shakspere  has 
unquestionably  emerged  from  the  cold,  paralyz 
ing  doubts  of  Hamlet  into  the  human  tenderness 
and  perfect  love  and  faith  of  The  Tempest,  a  faith 
which  can  look  clearly  upon  all  the  wretched 
crimes  and  follies  of  the  crew  of  time,  and  still 
be  tender  and  loving  and  faithful.  In  short,  he 
has  learned  to  manage  the  Hamlet  antagonisms, 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  223 

to  adjust  the  moral  oppositions,  with  the  same 
artistic  sense  of  proportion  with  which  we  saw 
him  managing  and  adjusting  the  verse-oppositions 
and  the  figure-oppositions."  1 

"Surely  the  genius  which  in  the  heat  and 
struggle  of  ideal  creation  has  the  enormous  con 
trol  and  temperance  to  arrange  and  adjust  in 
harmonious  proportions  all  these  aesthetic  an 
tagonisms  of  verse,  surely  that  is  the  same  genius 
which  in  the  heat  and  battle  of  life  will  arrange 
the  moral  antagonisms  with  similar  self-control 
and  temperance.  Surely  there  is  a  point  of  tech- 
nic  to  which  the  merely  clever  artist  may  reach, 
but  beyond  which  he  may  never  go,  for  lack  of 
moral  insight ;  surely  your  Robert  Greene,  your 
Kit  Marlowe,  your  Tom  Nash,  clever  poets  all, 
may  write  clever  verses  and  arrange  clever 
dramas ;  but  if  we  look  at  their  own  flippant 
lives  and  pitiful  deaths  and  their  small  ideals  in 
their  dramas,  and  compare  them,  technic  for 
technic,  life  for  life,  morality  for  morality,  with 
this  majestic  Shakspere,  who  starts  in  a  dream, 
who  presently  encounters  the  real,  who  after  a 
while  conquers  it  to  its  proper  place  (for  Shak 
spere,  mind  you,  does  not  forget  the  real ;  he  will 
not  be  a  beggar  nor  a  starveling ;  we  have  docu 
ments  which  show  how  he  made  money,  how  he 
bought  land  at  Stratford ;  we  have  Richard 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  ii,  p.  260. 


224  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Quincy's  letter  to  4my  loweinge  good  frend 
and  contreyman  Mr.  Wm.  Shakspere,  deliver 
thees,'  asking  the  loan  of  thirty  pounds  4  uppon 
Mr.  Bushells  and  my  securytee,'  showing  that 
Shakspere  had  money  to  lend),  and  finally 
turns  it  into  the  ideal  in  The  Tempest ;  if  we 
compare,  I  say,  Greene,  Marlowe,  Nash,  with 
Shakspere,  surely  the  latter  is  a  whole  heaven 
above  them  in  the  music  of  his  verse,  as  well  as 
in  the  temperance  and  prudence  of  his  life,  as 
well  also  as  in  the  superb  height  of  his  later 
moral  ideals.  Surely,  in  fine,  there  is  a  point  of 
mere  technic  in  art  beyond  which  nothing  but 
moral  greatness  can  attain,  because  it  is  at  this 
point  that  the  moral  range,  the  religious  fervor, 
the  true  seership  and  prophethood  of  the  poet, 
come  in  and  lift  him  to  higher  views  of  all 
things."  i 

Lanier  frequently  indulged  in  little  homilies, 
—  "  preachments  "  Thackeray  would  call  them. 
They  were  lectures  on  life  as  well  as  on  literature 
in  its  more  technical  sense.  Two  passages  in 
dicate  a  poet's  feeling  for  nature,  especially  his 
love  of  trees  :  — 

"  But  besides  the  phase  of  Nature-communion 
which  we  call  physical  science,  there  is  the  other, 
artistic  phase.  Day  by  day  we  find  that  the  mys 
tic  influence  of  Nature  on  our  human  personality 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  ii,  p.  324. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   225 

grows  more  intense  and  individual.  Who  can 
walk  alone  in  your  beautiful  Druid  Hill  Park, 
among  those  dear  and  companionable  oaks,  with 
out  a  certain  sense  of  being  in  the  midst  of  a 
sweet  and  noble  company  of  friends  ?  Who  has 
not  shivered,  wandering  among  these  trees,  with 
a  certain  sense  that  the  awful  mysteries  which 
the  mother  earth  has  brought  with  her  out  of 
the  primal  times  are  being  sucked  up  through 
those  tree-roots  and  poured  upon  us  out  of  branch 
and  leaf  in  vague  showers  of  suggestions  that 
have  no  words  in  any  language  ?  Who,  in  some 
day  when  life  has  seemed  too  bitter,  when  man 
has  seemed  too  vile,  when  the  world  has  seemed 
all  old  leather  and  brass,  when  some  new  twist 
of  life  has  seemed  to  wrench  the  soul  beyond 
all  straightening,  —  who  has  not  flown,  at  such 
a  time,  to  the  deep  woods,  and  leaned  against  a 
tree,  and  felt  his  big  arms  outspread  like  the 
arms  of  the  preacher  that  teaches  and  blesses, 
and  slowly  absorbed  his  large  influences,  and  so 
recovered  one's  self  as  to  one's  fellow-men,  and 
gained  repose  from  the  ministrations  of  the  Oak 
and  the  Pine?"1 

"  In  the  sweet  old  stories  of  ascetics  who  by 
living  pure  and  simple  lives  in  the  woods  came 
to  understand   the  secrets   of  Nature,  the  con 
versation  of  trees,  the  talk  of  birds,  do  we  not 
1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  72. 


226  SIDNEY   LANIER 

find  but  the  shadows  of  this  modern  communion 
with  Nature  to  keep  ourselves  simple  and  pure, 
to  cultivate  our  moral  sense  up  to  that  point  of 
insight  that  we  see  all  Nature  alive  with  energy, 
that  we  hear  the  whole  earth  singing  like  a  flock 
of  birds,  yet  so  that  we  remember  Death  with 
Mr.  Darwin,  so  that  nothing  is  any  more  com 
monplace,  so  that  death  has  its  place  and  life  its 
place,  so  that  even  a  hasty  business  walk  along 
the  street  to  pay  a  bill  is  a  walk  in  fairyland 
amidst  unutterable  wonders  as  long  as  the  sky  is 
above  and  the  trees  in  sight,  —  in  other  words, 
to  be  natural  .  .  .  natural  in  our  art,  natural  in 
our  dress,  natural  in  our  behavior,  natural  in 
our  affections,  —  is  not  that  a  modern  consumma 
tion  of  culture  ?  For  to  him  who  rightly  under 
stands  Nature  she  is  even  more  than  Ariel  and 
Ceres  to  Prospero ;  she  is  more  than  a  servant 
conquered  like  Caliban,  to  fetch  wood  for  us : 
she  is  a  friend  and  comforter ;  and  to  that  man 
the  cares  of  the  world  are  but  a  fabulous  Mid 
summer  NigMs  Dream,  to  smile  at  —  he  is  ever 
in  sight  of  the  morning  and  in  hand-reach  of 
God."  i 

The  lectures  close,  as  they  began,  with  an 
estimate  of  the  value  of  the  poet  to  the  world 
and  with  a  word  of  greeting  to  his  audience  :  — 

"  Just  as  our  little  spheres  of  activity  in  life 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  73. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  227 

surely  combine  into  some  greater  form  or  pur 
pose  which  none  of  us  dream  of,  and  which  no 
one  can  see  save  some  unearthly  spectator  that 
stands  afar  off  in  space  and  looks  upon  the  whole 
of  things,  —  I  was  impressed  anew  with  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  poet  who  must  get  up  to  this  point 
and  stand  off  in  thought  at  the  great  distance  of 
the  ideal,  look  upon  the  complex  swarm  of  pur 
poses  as  upon  these  dancing  gnats,  and  find  out 
for  man  the  final  form  and  purpose  of  man's  life. 
In  short,  —  and  here  I  am  ending  this  course 
with  the  idea  with  which  I  began  it,  —  in  short, 
it  is  the  poet  who  must  sit  at  the  centre  of  things 
here,  as  surely  as  some  great  One  sits  at  the 
centre  of  things  Yonder,  and  who  must  teach  us 
how  to  control,  with  temperance  and  perfect  art 
and  unforgetfulness  of  detail,  all  our  oppositions, 
so  that  we  may  come  to  say  with  Aristotle,  at 
last,  that  poetry  is  more  philosophical  than  philo 
sophy  and  more  historical  than  history. 

"  Permit  me  to  thank  you  earnestly  for  the 
patience  with  which  you  have  listened  to  many 
details  that  must  have  been  dry  to  you ;  and  let 
me  sincerely  hope  that,  whatever  may  be  your 
oppositions  in  life,  whether  of  the  verse  kind  or 
the  moral  kind,  you  may  pass,  like  Shakspere, 
through  these  planes  of  the  Dream  Period  and 
the  Real  Period,  until  you  have  reached  the  ideal 
plane  from  which  you  clearly  see  that  wherever 


228  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Prosperous  art  and  Prospero's  love  and  Prospero's 
forgiveness  of  injuries  rule  in  behavior,  there  a 
blue  sky  and  a  quiet  heaven  full  of  sun  and  stars 
are  shining  over  every  tempest."  1 

One  of  the  things  which  enabled  Lanier  to 
produce  the  effect  that  he  did  in  teaching  liter 
ature  was  the  fact  that  he  was  an  excellent 
reader.  He  had  a  singularly  clear  and  resonant 
voice  and  a  power  to  enter  so  into  the  spirit  of  a 
work  of  art  that  he  had  no  trouble  in  keeping 
a  large  audience  thoroughly  interested.  The  fol 
lowing  account  by  one  of  his  hearers,  written  a 
short  time  after  his  death,  gives  the  effect  pro 
duced  by  his  readings  :  — 

"  Mr.  Lanier  did  not  lay  claim  to  any  extra 
ordinary  power  as  a  reader ;  indeed,  he  once, 
when  first  requested  to  instruct  a  class  of  ladies 
in  poetic  lore,  modestly  demurred,  on  the  ground 
of  his  inability  to  read  aloud.  '  I  cannot  read,' 
he  said  simply ;  '  I  have  never  tried.'  All,  how 
ever,  who  afterwards  heard  him  read  such  scenes 
from  Shakespeare  as  he  selected  to  illustrate  his 
lectures  were  thrilled  by  his  vivid  realization  of 
that  great  dramatist.  His  voice,  though  distinct, 
was  never  elevated  above  a  moderate  tone ;  he 
rarely  made  use  of  a  gesture ;  certainly,  there 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  ii,  p.  328.  I  have 
quoted  freely  from  these  lectures  because  they  are  in  a  form 
not  easily  accessible  to  the  general  reader,  and  because,  more 
than  any  other  of  his  prose  works,  they  reveal  the  inner  man. 


TEACHER  OF  ENGLISH  LITERATURE   229 

was  no  approach  to  action  or  to  the  adaptation  of 
his  voice  to  the  varied  characters  of  the  play ;  yet 
many  scenes  which  I  have  heard  him  read,  I  can 
hardly  believe  that  I  have  never  seen  produced  on 
the  stage,  so  truly  and  vividly  did  he  succeed  in 
presenting  them  to  my  imagination.  At  the  time 
I  used  to  wonder  in  what  element  lay  the  charm. 
Partly,  of  course,  in  his  own  profound  apprecia 
tion  of  the  author's  meaning,  partly  also  in  his 
clear  and  correct  emphasis,  but  most  of  all  in  the 
wonderful  word-painting  with  which,  by  a  few 
masterly  strokes,  he  placed  the  whole  scene  be 
fore  the  mental  vision.  In  theatrical  representa 
tion,  a  man  with  a  bush  of  thorn  and  lantern 
must  '  present  moonshine '  and  another,  with  a 
bit  of  plaster,  the  wall  which  divides  Pyramus 
from  his  Thisbe  ;  but  in  Mr.  Lanier's  readings, 
a  poet's  quick  imagination  brought  forth  in  full 
perfection  all  the  accessories  of  the  play.  When 
he  read,  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  lecture  hall,  that 
scene  from  4  Pericles  '  in  which  Cerimon  restores 
Thaisa's  apparently  lifeless  body  to  animation, 
a  large  audience  listened  with  breathless  atten 
tion.  His  graphic  comments  caused  the  whole 
rapidly  moving  scene  to  engrave  itself  on  the 
memory."  l 

Such  readings  and  lectures  are  treasured  in 
the  minds  of  those  who  heard  them.    In  addition 

1  Letter  of  Mrs.  Arthur  W.  Machen  to  the  author. 


230  SIDNEY   LANIER 

to  his  work  at  the  Peabody  Institute  Lanier 
taught  in  various  schools,  and  so  extended  his 
influence.  It  is  easy  to  overstate  the  good  he 
accomplished,  but  it  is  within  bounds  to  say 
that  his  efforts  to  develop  the  culture  life  of  the 
city  bore  fruit,  and  that  he  has  his  place  among 
those  who  have  contributed  to  the  new  Balti 
more.  He  shared  in  all  the  advantages  made  pos 
sible  by  the  philanthropy  of  George  Peabody 
and  Johns  Hopkins,  and  in  such  aesthetic  influ 
ences  as  the  Allston  Art  Association  and  the 
Walters  collection  of  French  and  Spanish  pic 
tures.  In  turn  he  promoted  a  love  of  music  and 
poetry.  The  successive  invasions  of  Baltimore 
by  people  from  New  England,  Virginia,  and 
Georgia  had  added  a  cosmopolitan  and  cultured 
society.  By  a  wide  circle  Lanier  was  much  be 
loved.  His  admiration  for  the  city  and  his  ideals 
for  its  future  are  well  expressed  in  his  "  Ode  to 
the  Johns  Hopkins  University  :  "  — 

And  here,  O  finer  Pallas,  long  remain,  — 
Sit  on  these  Maryland  hills,  and  fix  thy  reign, 
And  frame  a  fairer  Athens  than  of  yore 
In  these  blest  bounds  of  Baltimore.  .  .  . 

Yea,  make  all  ages  native  to  our  time, 
Till  thou  the  freedom  of  the  city  grant 
To  each  most  antique  habitant 
Of  Fame,—  .  .  . 

And  many  peoples  call  from  shore  to  shore, 
The  world  has  bloomed  again  at  Baltimore  I 


CHAPTER  IX 

LECTUKER   AT   JOHNS    HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY 

THE  Peabody  lectures  led  to  the  appointment  of 
Lanier  as  lecturer  in  English  literature  at  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  As  early  as  the  fall  of  1876, 
he  had  written  to  President  Gilman,  asking  for 
a  catalogue  of  the  institution.  In  answer  to  his 
first  letter  of  inquiry,  President  Gilman,  who 
had  followed  with  interest  his  Centennial  poem, 
and  had  been  from  the  first  an  admirer  of  his 
poetry,  requested  an  interview  for  the  purpose 
of  discussing  with  him  the  possibility  of  identify 
ing  him  with  the  University.  Lanier  had  then 
talked  with  him  about  the  advisability  of  estab 
lishing  a  chair  of  music  and  poetry,  a  plan  which 
appealed  to  Dr.  Gilman.  In  a  letter  to  his  brother 
he  writes  of  this  interview :  "  He  invited  me  to 
tea  and  gave  up  his  whole  evening  to  discussing 
ways  and  means  for  connecting  me  officially  with 
the  University."  He  had  been  delayed  in  sug 
gesting  the  matter  to  him  before  by  his  "  igno 
rance  as  to  whether  I  had  pursued  any  special 
course  of  study  in  life."  Dr.  Gilman  recom 
mended  to  the  trustees  that  Lanier  be  appointed 


232  SIDNEY   LANIER 

to  such  a  chair,  and  the  latter  looked  forward  to 
a  "  speedy  termination  of  his  wandering  and  a 
pleasant  settlement  for  a  long  time."  For  some 
reason,  however,  the  plan  did  not  materialize, 
and  we  find  Lanier  a  year  later  writing  a  letter 
applying  for  a  fellowship  :  — 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  Sept.  26,  1877. 

DEAR  MR.  OILMAN,  —  From  a  published  re 
port  of  your  very  interesting  address  I  learn  that 
there  is  now  a  vacant  Fellowship.  Would  I  be 
able  to  discharge  the  duties  of  such  a  position  ? 

My  course  of  study  would  be :  first,  constant 
research  in  the  physics  of  musical  tone ;  second, 
several  years'  devotion  to  the  acquirement  of  a 
thoroughly  scientific  general  view  of  Mineral 
ogy,  Botany,  and  Comparative  Anatomy  ;  third, 
French  and  German  Literature.  I  fear  this  may 
seem  a  nondescript  and  even  flighty  process  ;  but 
it  makes  straight  towards  the  final  result  of  all 
my  present  thought,  and  I  am  tempted,  by  your 
great  kindness,  to  believe  that  you  would  have 
confidence  enough  in  me  to  await  whatever  devel 
opment  should  come  of  it. 

Sincerely  yours, 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 

Such  a  plan  of  study  did  not  fit  in  with  the 
scheme  of  graduate  courses,  and  so  he  was  not 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   233 

awarded  it.  President  Oilman  had,  however, 
heard  with  much  satisfaction  Lanier's  lectures  at 
Mrs.  Bird's,  and  had  cooperated  with  him  in  the 
series  of  lectures  at  the  Peabody  Institute.  Fi 
nally,  the  trustees,  convinced  of  Lanier's  scholar 
ship,  and  conscious  of  his  growing  influence  in 
Baltimore,  agreed  to  his  appointment  as  lecturer 
in  English  literature,  and  Dr.  Oilman  had  the 
rare  pleasure  of  announcing  the  fact  on  the  poet's 
thirty-seventh  birthday  —  February  3,  1879. 
Lanier  responded  in  a  letter,  indicative  at  once 
of  the  spirit  in  which  he  received  the  appoint 
ment  and  of  his  high  personal  regard  for  the 
president  of  the  University.  No  story  of  Lanier's 
life  would  be  adequate  that  did  not  pay  tribute 
to  the  uniform  kindness  and  thoughtful  consid 
eration  of  the  poet's  welfare  manifested  by  Dr. 
Oilman.  He  has  his  place  in  that  inner  circle  of 
Lanier's  friends  who  meant  much  to  him  in  open 
ing  up  new  fields  of  endeavor,  and  who  after  his 
death  zealously  promoted  his  fame. 

Lanier  occupies  a  place  in  the  history  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University  that  has  perhaps  not  been 
fully  appreciated.  His  appointment  was  not  a 
merely  nominal  one,  for  he  threw  himself  with 
zeal  and  energy  into  the  life  of  the  University. 
He  breathed  its  atmosphere.  He  was  a  personal 
friend  of  the  president,  of  nearly  every  member 
of  the  faculty,  and  of  the  university  officers.  He 


234  SIDNEY   LANIER 

caught  its  spirit  and  grew  with  it  into  a  real  sense 
of  the  ideals  of  University  work.  While  his  poem 
written  on  the  fourth  anniversary  of  the  opening 
of  the  University,  is  not  one  of  his  best,  it  indi 
cates  the  great  love  that  he  had  for  the  institu 
tion  :  — 

How  tall  among  her  sisters,  and  how  fair, — 
How  grave  beyond  her  youth,  yet  debonair 
As  dawn !  .  .  . 

Has  she,  old  Learning's  latest  daughter,  won 
This  grace,  this  stature,  and  this  fruitful  fame. 

What  the  University  meant  to  Lanier  can  be 
realized  only  by  those  who  have  noted  the  eager 
spirit  with  which  he  responded  to  every  great  in 
fluence  brought  into  his  life,  and  who  realize 
what  "  those  early  days  of  unbounded  enthusiasm 
and  unfettered  ideality,"  characteristic  of  the 
newly  founded  University,  meant  to  the  Ameri 
can  educational  system.  Her  sister  institutions 
have  in  later  days  gone  far  beyond  Johns  Hop 
kins  in  equipment  and  in  opportunities  for  re 
search,  but  students  of  American  education  can 
never  forget  the  pioneer  work  of  the  University 
in  the  line  of  graduate  study.  Fortunately  its 
benefactor  had  left  a  board  of  trustees  absolutely 
untrammeled  by  any  condition  or  reservation, 
political,  religious,  or  literary.  A  body  of  un 
usually  strong  men,  they  were  fortunate  in  secur 
ing  the  services  of  Daniel  Coit  GilmaD,  whose 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   235 

experience  in  educational  matters  had  commended 
itself  to  the  judgment  of  the  four  leading  uni 
versity  presidents  of  the  country  to  such  an  ex 
tent  that  each  of  them  without  consulting  with 
the  others  advised  his  election.  The  newly  elected 
president  and  the  trustees  were  accessible  to 
ideas,  and  finally  decided  that  the  wisest  thing 
that  could  be  done  was  to  make  possible  what 
had  been  previously  wanting  in  American  univer 
sities,  a  graduate  school  with  high  standards. 
American  professors  had  studied  in  German  uni 
versities  and  distinguished  European  scholars 
had  been  called  to  chairs  in  American  univer 
sities,  but  neither  had  succeeded  in  essentially 
modifying  the  type  of  higher  education.  Dr. 
Gilman  himself  had  tried  in  vain  to  secure  the 
opportunity  for  graduate  work  in  this  country. 
Now,  without  any  traditions  to  bind  them,  the 
organizers  of  the  University  had  the  opportunity 
"  which  marked  the  entrance  of  the  higher  edu 
cation  in  America  upon  a  new  phase  in  its  devel 
opment."  "  The  great  work  of  Hopkins,"  said 
President  Eliot  at  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary 
of  its  foundation,  "  is  the  creation  of  a  school  of 
graduate  studies,  which  not  only  has  been  in 
itself  a  strong  and  potent  school,  but  which  has 
lifted  every  other  university  in  the  country  in 
its  departments  of  arts  and  sciences." 

The  trustees  were  very  wise  in  choosing  as 


236  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  first  faculty  men  who  had  the  training  and 
the  aspiration  to  make  this  work  possible :  the 
"  soaring-genius 'd  Sylvester,"  — 

That,  earlier,  loosed  the  knot  great  Newton  tied, 
And  flung  the  door  of  Fame's  locked  temple  wide; 

Gildersleeve,  who  combined  the  best  classical 
traditions  of  the  old  South  with  recent  methods 
of  German  scholarship ;  Morris,  who  came  from 
Oxford,  "  devout,  learned,  enthusiastic ;  "  accom 
plished  Martin,  who  "  brought  to  this  country 
new  methods  of  physiological  inquiry ;  "  Row 
land,  "  honored  in  every  land,  peer  of  the  greatest 
physicists  of  our  day;"  and  Adams,  "suggestive, 
industrious,  inspiring,  ductile,  beneficent,"  who, 
though  at  first  holding  a  subordinate  position, 
built  up  a  department  of  history  and  economics 
which  has  had  a  potent  influence  throughout  the 
South, and  indeed  throughout  the  country.1  These 
men  did  much  original  work  themselves,  and  put 
before  the  public  in  popular  articles  and  scien 
tific  journals  the  ideals  of  their  several  depart 
ments.  It  is  noteworthy  that  for  every  department 
a  special  scientific  journal  was  established.  The 
library,  though  small,  was  composed  of  special 
working  collections  and  of  foreign  periodicals, 
which,  when  supplemented  by  the  Peabody  Li- 

1  The  account  of  the  first  faculty  is  based  largely  on  ex- 
President  Oilman's  article,  "  The  Launching-  of  a  University," 
in  Scribner's  Magazine,  March,  1902. 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   237 

brary,  gave  an  opportunity  for  the  most  diligent 
research.  The  students,  who  came  from  all  parts 
of  the  country,  were  shown  "  how  to  discover  the 
limits  of  the  known ;  how  to  extend,  even  by  mi 
nute  accretions,  the  realm  of  knowledge  ;  how  to 
cooperate  with  other  men  in  the  prosecution  of 
inquiry."  Reviewing  the  work  done  by  the  fac 
ulty  and  students  of  the  University,  the  leading 
scientific  journal  of  England  said,  July  12, 1883: 
"  We  should  like  to  see  such  an  account  of  ori 
ginal  work  done  and  to  be  done  issuing  each  year 
from  the  laboratories  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge." 
In  addition  to  the  regular  courses  offered  by 
members  of  the  faculty,  the  University  provided 
for  series  of  lectures  to  be  given  by  distinguished 
scholars  from  both  American  and  European  uni 
versities.  These  lectures,  suggested  by  those  given 
at  the  College  de  France,  appealed  at  once  to 
the  University  community  and  to  the  citizens  of 
Baltimore.  In  the  course  of  the  first  five  years 
they  had  the  chance  to  hear  Lord  Kelvin,  Free 
man,  Bryce,  Von  Hoist,  Edmund  Gosse,  Wil 
liam  James,  Hiram  Corson,  and  shorter  series  of 
lectures  by  Phillips  Brooks,  Dean  Stanley,  and 
others.  The  most  notable  of  all  were  delivered 
in  1877  by  Lowell  and  Child,  while  at  the  same 
time  Charles  Eliot  Norton  was  lecturing  at  the 
Peabody  Institute,  — "  the  three  wise  men  of 
the  East." 


238  SIDNEY   LANIER 

From  far  the  sages  saw,  from  far  they  came 
And  ministered  to  her. 

Lowell  lectured  on  Romance  poetry,  with  Dante 
as  the  central  theme,  while  Child  had  "  a  four 
weeks'  triumph  "  in  Chaucer,  producing  a  cor 
ner  on  that  poet's  works  in  all  the  bookstores 
of  the  city.  Readers  of  Lowell's  letters  will 
remember  the  joy  that  he  had  in  renewing  his 
association  with  Child  and  in  forming  new  ac 
quaintances  in  the  circles  of  Johns  Hopkins  and 
Baltimore.  Unfortunately,  Lanier  was  at  that 
time  in  Florida,  seeking  the  restoration  of  his 
health,  and  so  missed  the  opportunity  which  he 
would  have  coveted,  of  hearing,  and  of  being 
closely  associated  with,  these  eminent  scholars. 

To  what  degree  was  Lanier  a  scholar,  worthy 
to  be  named  in  connection  with  such  men? 
There  are  some  who  would  deny  him  such  a 
rank ;  and  indeed,  when  one  finds  in  his  books 
inaccuracies,  conceits,  and  hasty  generalizations, 
one  is  apt  to  grow  impatient  with  him.  But  there 
are  points  which  connect  him  with  the  modern 
English  scholar.  In  the  first  place,  he  was  a 
very  hard  and  systematic  student.  He  had  none 
of  the  slipshod  methods  of  many  men  of  his  type. 
He  had  respect  for  the  most  recent  investiga 
tions  in  his  special  line  of  work,  —  he  knew  the 
value  of  scholarship.  The  Peabody  Library  en 
abled  him  to  have  at  hand  the  most  recent 


AT  JOHNS  HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY  239 

publications  of  the  learned  societies,  and  there  is 
no  question  that  he  steadfastly  endeavored  to 
keep  in  touch  with  the  authorities  in  any  special 
field  of  investigation  in  which  he  happened  to 
be  interested.  The  footnotes  in  the  "  Science  of 
English  Yerse  "  and  iii  the  Shakespeare  lectures 
indicate  that  he  had  a  knowledge  of  the  bibli 
ography  of  any  subject  he  touched.  Further 
more,  he  consulted  with  men  who  were  living 
in  Baltimore  and  had  the  special  information 
that  he  desired.  While  writing  the  "  Science  of 
English  Verse,"  he  often  talked  with  Professor 
Gildersleeve  as  to  Greek  metrics.  "  We  never 
became  intimate,"  says  the  latter,  "  and  yet  we 
were  good  friends  and  there  was  much  common 
ground.  Our  talks  usually  turned  on  matters  of 
literary  form.  He  was  eager,  receptive,  reaching 
out  to  all  the  knowable,  transmuting  all  that  he 
learned.  He  would  have  me  read  Greek  poetry 
aloud  to  him  for  the  sake  of  the  rhythm  and 
the  musical  effect."  1  When  the  book  was  fin 
ished,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Scribner :  "I  have  had 
no  opportunity  whatever  to  submit  this  book  to 
any  expert  friend  and  have  often  wished  that  I 
might  do  so  before  it  goes  finally  forth,  in  order 
that  I  might  avail  myself  of  any  suggestions 
which  would  be  likely  to  occur  to  another  mind, 
approaching  the  book  from  another  direction. 
1  Letter  to  the  author. 


240  SIDNEY   LANIER 

This  being  impossible,  it  has  occurred  to  me 
that  perhaps  you  have  sent  the  manuscript  to  be 
read  by  some  specialist  in  these  matters,  and 
that  possibly  some  such  suggestions  might  be  of 
fered  by  him.  Pray  let  me  know  if  you  think 
this  worthwhile."  On  questions  of  Anglo-Saxon 
he  conferred  with  Professor  A.  S.  Cook,  at  that 
time  instructor  in  the  University,  and  on  matters 
of  scientific  interest,  such  as  he  pursued  in  his 
investigation  into  the  physics  of  sound,  he  sought 
advice  from  the  scientists  of  the  University,  even 
taking  courses  with  them. 

For  Child,  Furnivall,  Hales,  Grosart,  and 
other  workers  in  the  field  of  English  literature 
he  had  the  greatest  reverence.  In  his  preface  to 
the  "  Boy's  Percy,"  in  commenting  on  the  accu 
racy  of  modern  scholarship,  he  speaks  of  the 
"  clear  advance  in  men's  conscience  as  to  literary 
relations  of  this  sort  .  .  .  the  perfect  delicacy 
which  is  now  the  rule  among  men  of  letters,  the 
scrupulous  fidelity  of  the  editor  to  his  text.  .  .  . 
I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  owe  this  in 
estimable  uplifting  of  exact  statement  and  pure 
truth  in  men's  esteem  to  the  same  vigorous 
growth  in  the  general  spirit  of  man  which  has 
flowed  forth,  among  other  directions,  into  the 
wondrous  modern  development  of  physical  sci 
ence.  Here  the  minutest  accuracy  in  observing 
and  the  utmost  faithfulness  in  reporting  have 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   241 

been  found  in  the  outset  to  be  absolutely  essen 
tial,  have  created  habits  and  requirements  of 
conscience  which  extend  themselves  into  all 
other  relations."  It  may  be  seen  from  such 
quotations  that  Lanier  had  respect  for  the  most 
minute  investigations  ;  he  had  no  tirades  to  make 
against  the  peeping  and  botanizing  spirit  that 
many  men  of  his  type  have  found  in  the  modern 
scholar.  Speaking  of  the  monumental  work  of 
Ellis  on  the  pronunciation  of  English  in  the  time 
of  Shakespeare,  he  pays  tribute  to  his  "  wonder 
ful  skill,  patience,  industry,  keenness,  fairness, 
and  learning." 

Furthermore,  Lanier  himself  had  the  spirit  of 
research  and  original  work  which  we  have  seen 
was  characteristic  of  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
He  not  only  had  the  desire  to  investigate,  but  he 
also  gave  form  and  shape  to  his  investigations. 
In  this  he  was  in  striking  contrast  with  many 
Southern  scholars.  Joseph  Le  Conte,  in  his  re 
cent  autobiography,  tells  of  a  friend  of  his  who 
had  the.  making  of  a  great  scientist.  He  met 
him  at  Flat  Kock  in  1858,  and  heard  him  talk 
most  intelligently  on  the  origin  of  species.  At 
that  early  date  this  South  Carolina  planter  had 
Darwin's  idea.  "  Why  did  n't  he  publish  it  ?  " 
asks  Le  Conte,  the  answer  to  which  question 
leads  him  to  comment  on  the  lack  of  productive 
scholars  in  the  South.  "  Nothing  could  be  more 


242  SIDNEY   LANIER 

remarkable  than  the  wide  reading,  the  deep  re 
flection,  the  refined  culture,  and  the  originality 
of  thought  and  observation  characteristic  of  them, 
and  yet  the  idea  of  publication  never  even  enters 
their  minds.  What  right  has  any  one  to  publish 
unless  it  is  something  of  the  greatest  importance, 
something  that  would  revolutionize  thought  ?  " 
Now  Lanier  was  filled  with  the  spirit  of  making 
contributions,  however  insignificant,  to  the  de 
velopment  of  scholarship  in  some  one  direction. 
He  restates,  for  instance,  with  remarkable  insight 
and  conciseness,  the  investigations  of  Fleay,  Ed 
ward  Dowden,  and  other  members  of  the  New 
Shakespeare  Society,  as  to  the  metrical  develop 
ment  seen  in  Shakespeare's  plays.  But  he  adds  to 
their  investigations  a  suggestion  as  to  the  greater 
freedom  with  which  Shakespeare  shifted  the  ac 
cent  in  his  later  plays  :  "  Several  reasons  may  be 
urged  for  the  belief  that  this  might  prove  one  of 
the  most  valuable  of  all  metrical  tests.  In  fact, 
when  we  consider  that  the  matter  of  rhythmic 
accent  is  one  which  affects  every  bar  of  each  line, 
while  the  four  tests  just  now  applied  affect  only 
the  last  bar  of  each  line ;  and  when  we  consider 
further  that  the  real  result  of  this  freedom  in 
using  the  rhythmic  accent  is  to  vary  the  mono 
tonous  regularity  of  the  regular  system  with 
the  charm  of  those  subtle  rhythms  which  we 
employ  in  familiar  discourse,  so  that  the  habit 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   243 

of  such  freedom  might  grow  with  the  greatest 
uniformity  upon  a  poet,  and  might  thus  pre 
sent  us  with  a  test  of  such  uniform  development 
as  to  be  reliable  for  nicer  discrimination  than 
any  of  the  more  regular  tests  can  be  pushed 
to,  —  it  would  seem  fair  to  expect  confirmation 
of  great  importance  from  a  properly  constructed 
Table  of  Abnormal  Rhythmic  Accents  in  Shak- 
spere." 

Lanier  not  only  made  these  investigations  him 
self,  but  incited  his  students  to  do  so,  especially 
those  in  the  smaller  classes  of  the  University.  A 
good  illustration  is  in  the  suggestion  he  made  to 
a  class  that  they  might  together  work  out  some 
interesting  etymological  and  dialectical  points. 
"  Why  should  not  some  of  the  intelligent  ladies 
of  this  class,"  he  asks,  "  go  to  work  and  arrange 
the  facts  —  as  I  have  called  them  —  so  that 
scholars  might  have  before  them  a  comprehen 
sive  view  of  all  the  word-changes  which  have 
occurred  since  the  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  works 
were  written  ?  The  other  day  a  young  lady  —  one 
of  the  very  brightest  young  women  I  have  ever 
met  —  asked  me  to  give  her  a  vocation.  She 
said  she  had  studied  a  good  many  things,  of  one 
sort  or  another  ;  that  she  was  merely  going  over 
ground  which  thousands  of  others  had  trodden  ; 
that  she  wanted  some  original  work,  some  method 
by  which  she  could  contribute  substantially  to 


244  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  world's  stock  of  knowledge :  having  this  kind 
of  outlet  she  felt  sure  she  had  a  genuine  desire, 
a  working  desire,  to  go  forward.  Well,  of  the 
numerous  plans  which  I  can  imagine  for  women 
to  pursue,  I  have  suggested  to  you  one  which 
would  combine  pleasure  with  profitable  work  in 
a  most  charming  manner.  Suppose  that  some 
lady  —  or  better  a  club  of  ladies  —  should  set 
out  to  note  down  the  changes  in  spelling  —  and 
if  possible  in  pronunciation  —  which  have  oc 
curred  in  every  word  now  remaining  to  us  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  tongue.  The  task  would  not  be 
a  difficult  one.  All  that  would  be  required  would 
be  to  portion  out  to  each  member  of  the  club  a 
specific  set  of  books  to  be  read,  each  set  consisting 
of  some  books  in  Anglo-Saxon,  some  in  Middle 
English,  and  some  in  Modern  English.  Each 
member  would  take  her  books  and  fall  to  reading. 
As  she  would  come  to  each  word  she  would  write 
it  down;  and  whenever  she  would  happen  on 
the  same  word  in  a  book  of  a  later  century  she 
would  write  it  down  under  the  first  one  ;  if  she 
came  upon  the  same  word  in  a  book  of  a  still 
later  century  she  would  write  it  down  under 
the  other  two,  and  so  on.  As  each  member  of 
the  club  would  rapidly  accumulate  material,  the 
whole  body  might  meet  once  a  month  to  collate 
and  arrange  the  results.  In  this  way  a  pursuit 
which  would  soon  become  perfectly  fascinating 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   245 

would  in  no  long  time  collect  material  for  a  thor 
ough  and  systematic  view  of  the  growth  of  Eng 
lish  words  for  the  last  thousand  years.  The  most 
interesting  questions  concerning  the  wonderful 
and  subtle  laws  of  word-change  might  then  be 
solved."  1 

In  his  zeal  for  publishing  and  editing  books 
he  conceived  of  a  rather  quixotic  plan  for  start 
ing  a  publishing  house.  In  a  letter  written  June 
8,  1879,  to  his  brother,  Lanier  urges  him  to 
come  to  Baltimore  and  go  into  the  publishing 
business  with  him.  They  can  then  both  become 
writers,  and  thus  resume  the  plan  of  working  to 
gether  that  they  had  formed  just  after  the  war. 
Lanier  himself  expects  to  send  forth  at  least  two 
books  a  year  for  the  next  ten  years.  "  These  are 
to  be  works,  not  of  one  season,  but  —  if  pop 
ular  at  all  —  increasing  in  value  with  each  year. 
Besides  these  works  on  language  and  literature 
and  the  science  of  verse,  —  which  I  hope  will  be 
standard  ones,  —  my  poems  are  to  be  printed. 
...  If  you  would  only  be  my  publisher !  In 
deed,  if  we  could  be  a  firm  together !  I  have 
many  times  thought  that  ;  Lanier  Brothers,  Pub 
lishers,'  might  be  a  strong  house,  particularly  as 
to  the  Southern  States."  He  then  outlines  his 
scheme  in  detail :  they  would  need  only  an  office, 
a  clerk  and  a  porter,  as  they  could  have  their 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  134. 


246  SIDNEY   LANIER 

printing  done  elsewhere.  He  closes  with  a  strong 
appeal  to  him  to  leave  the  South,  inasmuch  as 
political  conditions  at  that  time  seemed  to  render 
the  future  of  that  section  extremely  doubtful. 

A  still  more  noteworthy  characteristic  of  La- 
nier's  scholarship  is  the  modernness  of  his  work. 
It  is  a  striking  fact  that  every  subject  he  wrote 
about  has  more  and  more  engaged  the  attention 
of  scholars  since  his  time.  One  may  not  agree 
with  any  of  his  ideas,  and  may  be  convinced 
of  the  superficiality  of  his  treatment  of  litera 
ture,  but  there  is  no  question  of  the  insight 
manifested  by  him  in  seizing  upon  those  subjects 
that  have  been  of  notable  interest  to  recent 
scholars.  When  he  lectured  about  Shakespeare, 
for  instance,  he  did  not  indulge  in  any  of  the 
moralizing  that  had  been  characteristic  of  Ger 
man  commentators.  On  the  other  hand,  he  put 
himself  in  thorough  accord  with  the  work  outlined 
by  Dr.  Furnivall  and  his  fellow  workers  in  their 
efforts  to  study  and  interpret  Shakespeare  as  a 
whole.  "  The  first  necessity,"  said  Dr.  Furnivall 
in  the  introduction  to  the  Leopold  Shakespeare 
(1877),  "is  to  regard  Shakespeare  as  a  whole, 
his  works  as  a  living  organism,  each  a  member  of 
one  created  unity,  the  whole  a  tree  of  healing  and 
of  comfort  to  the  nations,  a  growth  from  small 
beginnings  to  mighty  ends."  And  again :  "  As 
the  growth  is  more  and  more  closely  watched  and 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY  247 

discerned,  we  shall  more  and  more  clearly  see 
that  his  metre,  his  words,  his  grammar  and  syn 
tax,  move  but  with  the  deeper  changes  of  mind 
and  soul  of  which  they  are  outward  signs,  and 
that  all  the  faculties  of  the  man  went  onward 
together.  .  .  .  This  subject  of  the  growth,  the 
oneness  of  Shakespeare  ...  is  the  special  busi 
ness  of  the  present,  the  second  school  of  Victo 
rian  students  ...  as  antiquarian  illustration, 
emendation,  and  verbal  criticism  were  of  the 
first  school.  The  work  of  the  first  school  we  have 
to  carry  on,  not  to  leave  undone ;  the  work  of 
our  own  second  school  we  have  to  do."  Into  this 
study,  thus  outlined  by  the  founder  of  the  New 
Shakespeare  Society,  Lanier  threw  himself  with 
unabated  zeal. 

The  fact  is  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we 
compare  his  writing  on  Shakespeare  with  Swin 
burne's  book  published  during  the  same  year. 
Swinburne  has  only  words  of  contempt  for  the 
investigations  of  the  New  Shakespeare  Society, 
whom  he  characterizes  as  "  learned  and  laborious 
men  who  could  hear  only  with  their  fingers.  They 
will  pluck  out  the  heart,  not  of  Hamlet's,  but  of 
Shakespeare's  mystery  by  the  means  of  a  metrical 
test ;  and  this  test  is  to  be  applied  by  a  purely 
arithmetical  process.  .  .  .  Every  man,  woman, 
and  child  born  with  five  fingers  on  each  hand 
was  henceforward  better  qualified  as  a  critic 


248  SIDNEY   LANIER 

than  any  poet  or  scholar  of  time  past."  He  calls 
them  "  metre-mongers  "  and  the  "  bastard  brood 
of  scribblers."  Lanier,  however,  while  carefully 
avoiding  the  methods  and  principles  of  a  mere 
dry-as-dust,  spiritualizes  all  their  facts,  and  works 
out  in  passages  of  remarkable  beauty  and  elo 
quence  the  growth  of  Shakespeare's  mind  and  art. 
To  Lanier  a  metrical  test  or  a  date  is  no  insig 
nificant  thing.  "  Many  a  man,"  he  says,  "  may 
feel  inclined  to  say,  Why  potter  about  your  dates 
and  chronologies  ?  .  .  .  But  it  so  happens  that 
here  a  whole  view  of  the  greatest  mind  the  hu 
man  race  has  yet  evolved  hangs  essentially  upon 
dates."  Lanier's  reverence  for  exact  scholarship 
and  his  application  of  seemingly  technical  stand 
ards  do  not  interfere  at  all  with  his  deeper 
appreciation  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  While  he 
overstated  the  autobiographical  value  of  a  chro 
nological  study  of  the  plays,  —  reading  into  this 
study  meanings  that  are  not  warranted  by  the 
facts,  —  it  must  be  said  that  it  is  difficult  to  find 
in  the  writings  of  Americans  on  Shakespeare  more 
significant  passages  than  chapters  xx-xxiv  of 
"  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners." 

Other  illustrations  of  the  modernness  of  La 
nier's  scholarly  work  are  easy  to  cite.  His  plan 
for  the  publication  of  a  book  of  Elizabethan  son 
nets,  while  not  realized  by  him,  has  been  carried 
out  during  the  past  year  in  a  far  more  extensive 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   249 

and  scholarly  way  than  he  could  have  done  it 
by  Mr.  Sidney  Lee.  In  the  light  of  the  recent . 
scholar's  investigation,  many  of  Lanier's  ideas 
with  regard  to  the  autobiographical  value  of  the 
sonnets  vanish,  but  his  insight  into  the  need  of  the 
study  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnets  is  none  the  less 
notable.  He  was  the  first  American  to  indicate 
the  necessity  for  the  study  of  the  novel  as  a  form 
of  literature  that  was  worthy  of  serious  thought. 
Lecture  courses  and  books  on  the  novel  have 
multiplied  at  a  rapid  rate  during  the  past  decade. 
Whatever  may  be  one's  idea  of  the  permanent 
value  of  the  "  Science  of  English  Verse,"  it  is 
evident  that  it  was  a  pioneer  book  in  a  field  which 
has  been  much  cultivated  within  recent  years. 
The  thesis  of  the  book  will  be  discussed  in  a  later 
chapter  ;  here  it  needs  to  be  said  that  it  is  one  of 
the  best  pieces  of  original  work  yet  produced  by 
an  English  scholar  in  America,  —  in  it  are  seen 
at  their  best  the  qualities  that  have  been  noted 
as  distinctive  in  the  author's  work. 

All  these  very  essential  characteristics  of  a 
scholar  Lanier  had.  He  had  not  the  time  to 
secure  results  from  the  plans  that  he  clearly  saw. 
He  was  moving  in  the  right  direction.  No  scholar 
should  ever  speak  of  him  but  with  reverent  lips. 
Without  the  training,  or  the  equipment,  or  the 
time,  of  more  fortunate  scholars  of  our  own  day, 
he  should  be  an  inspiration  to  all  men  who  have 


250  SIDNEY   LANIER 

scholarly  ideals.  If  not  a  great  scholar  himself, 
he  wanted  to  be  one,  and  he  had  the  finest  ap 
preciation  of  all  who  were.  And  besides,  did  he 
not  have  something  which  is  often  lacking  in 
scholars  ?  There  is  more  science,  more  criticism 
now  in  American  universities,  but  it  would  be 
well  to  keep  in  view  the  ideals  of  men  who  saw 
the  spiritual  significance  of  scholarship.  Pre 
sident  Gilman  realized  this  when  he  wrote  to 
Lanier:  "I  think  your  scheme  (of  winter  lec 
tures)  may  be  admirably  worked  in,  not  only  with 
our  major  and  minor  courses  in  English,  but 
with  all  our  literary  courses,  French  and  German, 
Latin  and  Greek.  The  teachers  of  these  sub 
jects  pursue  chiefly  language  courses.  We  need 
among  us  some  one  like  you,  loving  literature  and 
poetry,  and  treating  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  enlist 
and  inspire  many  students.  ...  I  think  your 
aims  and  your  preparation  admirable." 

Dr.  Gilman  refers  here  to  a  scheme  for  a 
course  in  English  literature  outlined  by  the  poet 
in  the  summer  of  1879.  Lanier  indicated  three 
distinct  courses  of  study  which  would  tend  to  give 
to  students  (1)  a  vocabulary  of  idiomatic  Eng 
lish  words  and  phrases,  (2)  a  stock  of  illustra 
tive  ideas,  (3)  acquaintance  with  modern  literary 
forms.  To  secure  the  first  point,  he  suggests  that 
students  should  read  with  a  view  to  gathering 
strong  and  homely  English  words  and  phrases 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY   251 

from  a  study  of  authors  ranging  from  the  Scotch 
poets  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  to 
Swift  and  Emerson.  To  secure  ideas,  the  student 
should  study  systems  of  thought,  ancient  and 
modern.  "  The  expansion  of  mental  range,  as 
well  as  special  facilities  in  expression,  attainable 
by  such  a  course,  cannot  be  too  highly  estimated." 
Under  the  third  head  he  suggests  the  study  of 
various  forms  of  writing,  —  an  idea  which  has  been 
carried  out  in  recent  years.  The  ultimate  end  of 
all  this  study,  however,  is  "  the  spiritual  consola 
tion  and  refreshment  of  literature  when  the  day's 
work  is  over,  the  delight  of  sitting  with  a  favor 
ite  poet  or  essayist  at  evening,  the  enlargement 
of  sympathy,  derivable  from  powerful  individual 
presentations  such  as  Shakespeare's  or  George 
Eliot's;  the  gentle  influences  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  or  Burton  or  Lamb  or  Hood,  the  re 
pose  of  Wordsworth,  the  beauty  of  Keats,  the 
charm  of  Tennyson  should  be  brought  out  so  as 
to  initiate  friendships  between  special  students 
and  particular  authors,  which  may  be  carried  on 
through  life."  * 

In  another  letter  he  wrote  still  further  of  his 
plans,  clearly  distinguishing  between  the  popular 
lectures  and  the  more  technical  work  of  the  Uni 
versity  class-room.  It  is  a  long  letter,  but  gives 
so  well  Lanier's  idea  of  his  work  in  the  Univer- 
1  The  Independent,  March  18,  1886. 


252  SIDNEY   LANIER 

sity  and  his  plans  for  the  future  that  it  serves 
better  than  much  comment :  — 

180  ST.  PAUL  STREET,  BALTIMORE,  MD., 
July  13,  1879. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  GILMAN,  —  I  see,  from  your 
letter,  that  I  did  not  clearly  explain  my  scheme 
of  lectures. 

The  course  marked  "  Class  Lectures"  is  meant 
for  advanced  students,  and  involves  the  hardest 
kind  of  University  work  on  their  part.  Perhaps 
you  will  best  understand  the  scope  of  the  tasks 
which  this  course  will  set  before  the  student  by 
reading  the  inclosed  theses  which  I  should  dis 
tribute  among  the  members  of  the  class  as  soon 
as  I  should  have  discovered  their  mental  leanings 
and  capacities  sufficiently,  and  which  I  should 
require  to  be  worked  out  by  the  end  of  the  scho 
lastic  year.  I  beg  you  to  read  these  with  some 
care  :  1  send  only  seven  of  them,  but  they  will  be 
sufficient  to  show  you  the  nature  of  the  work 
which  I  propose  to  do  with  the  University  stu 
dent.  I  should  like  my  main  efforts  to  take  that 
direction  ;  I  wish  to  get  some  Americans  at  hard 
work  in  pure  literature  ;  and  will  be  glad  if  the 
public  lectures  in  Hopkins  Hall  shall  be  merely 
accessory  to  my  main  course.  With  this  view,  as 
you  look  over  the  accompanying  theses,  please 
observe :  — 

1.  That  each  of  these  involves  original  research 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   253 

and  will  —  if  properly  carried  out  —  constitute 
a  genuine  contribution  to  modern  literary  scholar- 
ship; 

2.  That  they  are  so  arranged  as  to  fall  in  with 
various  other  studies  and  extend  their  range,  — 
for  example,  the  first  one  being  suitable   to  a 
student  of  philosophy  who  is  pursuing  Anglo- 
Saxon,  the  second  to  one  who  is  studying  the 
Transition  Period  of  English,  the  sixth  to  one 
who  is  studying  Elizabethan  English,  and  so  on ; 

3.  That  each  one  necessitates  diligent  study 
of  some  great  English  work,  not  as  a  philological 
collection  of  words,  but  as  pure  literature ;  and 

4.  That  they  keep  steadily  in  view,  as  their 
ultimate  object,  that  strengthening  of  manhood, 
that  enlarging  of  sympathy,  that  glorifying  of 
moral  purpose,  which  the  student  unconsciously 
gains,  not  from  any  direct  didacticism,  but  from 
this  constant  association  with  our  finest  ideals 
and  loftiest  souls. 

Thus  you  see  that  while  the  course  of  "  Class 
Lectures  "  submitted  to  you  nominally  centres 
about  the  three  plays  of  Shakspere1  therein 
named,  it  really  takes  these  for  texts,  and  in 
volves,  in  the  way  of  commentary  and  of  thesis, 
the  whole  range  of  English  poetry.  In  fact  I 
have  designed  it  as  a  thorough  preparation  for 
the  serious  study  of  the  poetic  art  in  its  whole 

1  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Hamlet,  and  The  Tempest. 


254  SIDNEY   LANIER 

outcome,  hoping  that,  if  I  should  carry  it  out 
successfully,  the  Trustees  might  find  it  wise  next 
year  to  create  either  a  Chair  of  Poetry  or  a  per 
manent  lectureship  covering  the  field  above  indi 
cated.  It  is  my  fervent  belief  that  to  take  classes 
of  young  men  and  to  preach  them  the  gospel  ac- 
cording-to-Poetry  is  to  fill  the  most  serious  gap 
in  our  system  of  higher  education ;  I  think  one 
can  already  perceive  a  certain  narrowing  of  sym 
pathy  and  —  what  is  even  worse  —  an  unsym- 
metric  development  of  faculty,  both  intellectual 
and  moral,  from  a  too  exclusive  devotion  to 
Science  which  Science  itself  would  be  the  first 
to  condemn. 

As  to  the  first  six  class  lectures  on  "  The  Phys 
ics  and  Metaphysics  of  Poetry  :  "  they  unfold  my 
system  of  English  Prosody,  in  which  I  should 
thoroughly  drill  every  student  until  he  should  be 
able  to  note  down,  in  musical  signs,  the  rhythm 
of  any  English  poem.  This  drilling  would  con 
tinue  through  the  whole  course,  inasmuch  as  I 
regard  a  mastery  of  the  principles  set  forth  in 
those  lectures  as  vitally  important  to  all  syste 
matic  progress  in  the  understanding  and  enjoy 
ment  of  poetry. 

I  should  have  added,  apropos  of  this  class 
course,  that  there  ought  to  be  one  examination 
each  week,  to  every  two  lectures. 

In  the  first  interview  we  had,  after  my  appoint- 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   255 

ment,  it  was  your  intention  to  place  this  study 
among  those  required  by  the  University  for  a 
degree.  I  hope  sincerely  you  have  not  abandoned 
this  idea  ;  and  the  course  outlined  in  "  Class 
lectures  "  forwarded  to  you  the  other  day,  and  in 
the  theses  of  which  I  send  the  first  seven  here 
with,  seems  to  me  the  best  to  begin  with.  If  it 
should  be  made  a  part  of  the  "  Major  Course  in 
English  "  (where  it  seems  properly  to  belong), 
I  could  easily  arrange  a  simpler  and  less  arduous 
modification  of  it  for  the  corresponding  "  Minor 
Course." 

I  am  so  deeply  interested  in  this  matter  —  of 
making  a  finer  fibre  for  all  our  young  American 
manhood  by  leading  our  youth  in  proper  rela 
tions  with  English  poetry  —  that  at  the  risk  of 
consuming  your  whole  vacation  with  reading  this 
long  and  unconscionable  letter  I  will  mention 
that  I  have  nearly  completed  three  works  which 
are  addressed  to  the  practical  accomplishment  of 
the  object  named,  by  supplying  a  wholly  differ 
ent  method  of  study  from  that  mischievous  one 
which  has  generally  arisen  from  a  wholly  mis 
taken  use  of  the  numerous  "  Manuals  "  of  Eng 
lish  literature.  These  works  are  my  three  text 
books  :  (1)  "  The  Science  of  English  Verse,"  in 
which  the  student's  path  is  cleared  of  a  thousand 
errors  and  confusions  which  have  obstructed  this 
study  for  a  long  time,  by  a  very  simple  system 


256  SIDNEY   LANIER 

founded  upon  the  physical  relations  of  sound; 
(2)  "  From  Caedmon  to  Chaucer,"  in  which  I  pre 
sent  all  the  most  interesting  Anglo-Saxon  poems 
remaining  to  us,  in  a  form  which  renders  their 
literary  quality  appreciable  by  all  students, 
whether  specially  pursuing  Old  English  or  not, 
thus  placing  these  poems  where  they  ought  always 
to  have  stood,  as  a  sort  of  grand  and  simple 
vestibule  through  which  the  later  mass  of  Eng 
lish  poetry  is  to  be  approached ;  and  (3)  my 
"  Chaucer,"  which  I  render  immediately  enjoy 
able,  without  preliminary  preparation,  by  an  inter 
lined  glossarial  explanation  of  the  original  text, 
and  an  indication  (with  hyphens)  of  those  terminal 
syllables  affecting  the  rhythm  which  have  decayed 
out  of  the  modern  tongue.  I  am  going  to  print 
these  books  and  sell  them  myself,  on  the  cheap 
plan  which  has  been  so  successfully  adopted  by 
Edward  Arber,  lecturer  on  English  literature  in 
University  College,  London.  I  have  been  work 
ing  on  them  for  two  months ;  in  two  more  they 
will  be  finished ;  and  by  the  middle  of  Novem 
ber  I  hope  to  have  them  ready  for  use  as  text 
books.  If  they  succeed,  I  shall  complete  the 
series  next  year  with  (4)  a  "  Spenser  "  on  the  same 
plan  with  the  "  Chaucer,"  (5)  "  The  Minor  Eliza 
bethan  Song- Writers,"  and  (6)  "  The  Minor 
Elizabethan  Dramatists  ; "  the  steady  aim  of  the 
whole  being  to  furnish  a  working  set  of  books 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY  257 

which  will  familiarize  the  student  with  the  actual 
works  of  English  poets,  rather  than  with  their 
names  and  biographers. 

Pray  forgive  this  merciless  letter.  I  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  to  unfold  to  you  all  my 
hopes  and  plans  connected  with  my  University 
work  among  your  young  men  which  I  so  eagerly 
anticipate. 

I  will  trouble  you  to  return   these  notes   of 
theses  when  you  have  examined  them  at  leisure. 
Faithfully  yours, 

SIDNEY  LANIER.* 

He  endeavored  to  make  his  courses  fit  in  with 
other  courses  of  the  curriculum  in  Greek,  Latin, 
and  modern  literatures  :  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  had  been  meditating,  as 
a  second  course  of  public  lectures  during  next 
term,  if  you  should  want  them,  —  twelve  studies 
on  "  The  English  Satirists ; "  and  on  my  visit 
to  the  University  to-day  I  observed  from  the 
bulletin  that  Mr.  Rabillon  is  now  lecturing  on 
"  The  French  Satirists."  It  occurs  to  me,  there 
fore,  that  perhaps  some  additional  interest  in  the 
subject  might  be  excited  if  my  course  on  the 
English  satirists  should  follow  the  completion  of 
Mr.  Rabillon's  —  which  I  suppose  will  not  be  be- 

1  Published  in  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  April,  1905. 


258  SIDNEY  LANIER 

fore  the  holidays  —  and  should  be  given  in  Janu 
ary  and  February,  instead  of  the  course  men 
tioned  in  my  note  to  you  this  morning.  I  may 
add  that  if  some  other  gentleman  would  offer 
courses  on  the  Greek  and  Latin  satirists,  we 
might  make  a  cyclus  of  it.  Faithfully  yours, 

SIDNEY  LANIER. 

435  NORTH  CALVEBT  STREET, 
Saturday  evening. 

Lanier's  public  lectures  were  largely  attended. 
What  has  been  said  of  the  Peabody  lectures  ap 
plies  to  the  University  lectures.  Of  the  effect 
produced  by  him  in  his  smaller  University 
classes,  one  of  his  students  writes :  — 

"I  think  that  it  was  in  the  winter  of  1879- 
80  that  I  heard  that  Mr.  Lanier  was  to  conduct 
a  class  in  English  Literature  at  the  Johns  Hop 
kins  University,  where  I  was  then  a  Fellow.  My 
field  of  work  was  ^Esthetics  and  the  History  of 
Art,  and  as  I  was  eagerly  searching  for  chances 
to  broaden  and  deepen  my  ideas,  I  enrolled  my 
self  in  the  class.  We  were  not  many,  and  I 
have  no  recollection  of  individuals  in  the  group. 
Neither  can  I  distinctly  recall  either  the  topics 
taken  up  or  the  method  followed,  except  that 
most  of  the  hours  consisted  of  extended  readings 
by  Mr.  Lanier  with  all  sorts  of  interjected  re 
marks,  often  setting  aside  the  reading  altogether. 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  259 

That  the  course  was  a  real  source  of  intellectual 
profit  to  me  I  cannot  doubt,  but  not  in  the  form 
of  definite  information  or  systemized  opinion. 
The  benefit  lay  in  a  subtle  expansion  of  the 
power  of  appreciation  and  an  undefinable  exalta 
tion  of  the  instincts  of  taste  that  I  have  since 
learned  were  more  precious  than  any  precise  in 
crements  of  cold  knowledge. 

"  What  I  do  remember  vividly  is  the  fact  that 
often,  almost  regularly,  I  used  to  wait  for  Mr. 
Lanier  after  the  class  (which  was  held  in  the 
evening)  and  walk  home  with  him  a  mile  or  so, 
sometimes  walking  up  and  down  for  a  long  time. 
On  these  occasions  we  doubtless  talked  of  all 
manner  of  things.  I  was  only  a  student  trying 
to  '  find  himself  '  in  reference  to  the  vast  areas 
of  thought.  I  was  eager  for  sympathy  and  for  in 
spiration.  My  life-work  was  still  unchosen,  but 
I  was  conscious  of  an  intense  drawing  toward 
artistic  topics  —  not  much  with  the  creative  im 
pulse  of  the  artist,  but  rather  with  the  analytic 
and  rational  desire  of  the  student.  I  was  begin 
ning  to  have  a  profound  sense  of  the  interrela 
tions  of  the  fine  arts  with  each  other  and  of  all  of 
them  with  the  movement  of  history.  I  wanted  a 
chance  to  talk  out  what  I  was  thinking  and  to 
get  new  lights  and  promptings.  So  in  our  slow 
strolls  homeward  I  presume  that  I  often  babbled 
freely  of  my  studies  in  architecture  and  music, 


260  SIDNEY   LANIER 

and  my  inconsequent  remarks  often  led  Mr. 
Lanier  to  speak  somewhat  freely,  too,  of  his 
speculations  and  fancies.  I  now  recall  with  won 
der  how  he  put  me  on  such  a  footing  of  equality 
that  I  often  quite  forgot  the  difference  in  age  and 
experience  between  us  and  almost  felt  him  to  be 
a  companion  student.  I  now  see  that  this  was 
the  sign  of  two  notable  traits,  —  the  extreme  na 
tive  Southern  courtesy  that  clothed  him  always 
in  all  his  dealings  with  every  one,  and  the  essen 
tial  youthf ulness  of  his  mind  when  moving  among 
his  favorite  subjects.  His  was  surely  one  of  the 
finest  of  sympathies,  delicate,  sensitive,  elastic, 
vital  to  the  highest  degree,  the  like  of  which  is 
all  too  rare  among  men,  though  hardly  described 
by  the  term  '  feminine.'  In  it  breathed  a  genu 
ine  capacity  for  love  in  the  most  noble  sense,  for 
he  was  ready  to  identify  himself  with  the  interests 
of  another,  to  ether ealize  and  dignify  what  he 
thought  he  saw  in  them,  and  thus  absolutely  to 
transform  them  by  the  alchemy  of  his  touch.  And, 
the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I  recognize  that 
his  soul  was  incapable  of  aging.  .  .  .  This  abso 
lute  freshness  of  heart  and  spirit  seems  to  me 
to  have  been  one  of  the  highest  notes  of  Mr.  La- 
nier's  genius.  Here  he  was  clearly  allied  to  many 
a  more  famous  poet  or  painter  or  musician."  1 

1  Letter  to  the  author  from  Professor  Waldo  S.  Pratt,  now 
of  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   261 

Among  American  poets  Lanier  has  the  same 
place  with  regard  to  the  teaching  of  English  that 
Lowell  and  Longfellow  have  in  the  study  of 
modern  languages.  There  were,  to  be  sure,  some 
greater  English  scholars  in  this  country  during 
the  seventies  than  Lanier  was,  just  as  there  were 
more  scientific  students  of  modern  languages  in 
the  time  of  Longfellow  and  Lowell.  Professors 
Child  of  Harvard,  Lounsbury  of  Yale,  March  of 
Lafayette,  Corson  of  Cornell,  and  Price  of  Ran- 
dolph-Macon  College  —  afterwards  of  Columbia 
University  —  have  a  commanding  place  in  the 
development  of  English  teaching  which  has  be 
come  such  a  marked  feature  of  educational  pro 
gress  since,  say,  1870.  Throughout  schools  and 
colleges  and  universities  English  is  now  firmly 
established  as  perhaps  the  most  important  branch 
of  study.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  Lanier  that  before 
much  had  been  done  in  this  direction  he  saw  the 
great  need  of  such  work.  Indeed,  as  early  as 
1868,  while  examining  the  catalogue  of  a  South 
ern  university,  he  jotted  down  in  his  note-book 
a  suggestion  that  the  most  serious  defect  in  the 
curriculum  was  the  lack  of  any  English  training. 
It  is  true  that  there  had  been  from  time  imme 
morial  chairs  of  belles  lettres  in  institutions  of 
learning,  but  the  department  had  rather  to  do 
with  things  in  general.  Even  where  English  was 
studied  there  was  a  tendency  to  use  manuals  of 


262  SIDNEY   LANIEK 

literature  rather  than  the  works  of  authors  them 
selves  ;  and  there  is  now  a  tendency  to  use  liter 
ature  as  the  basis  for  philological  work.  Lanier's 
ideas  strike  one  as  singularly  balanced  and  sane, 
suggesting  a  compromise  between  the  warring 
camps  of  recent  years. 

By  reason  of  Lanier's  sympathy  with  the  ideals 
of  the  University,  and  his  influence  over  some  few 
students,  he  has  a  permanent  place  in  the  history  of 
Johns  Hopkins.  Mr.  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman 
wrote  to  President  Oilman :  "  It  is  a  fine  thing 
that  such  an  institution  as  your  University  should 
have  its  shrines  —  and  among  them  that  of  its  own 
poet,  in  a  certain  sense  canonized,  and  with  his 
most  ideal  memory  a  lasting  part  of  its  associa 
tions."  The  University  has,  indeed,  kept  the  fame 
and  the  personality  of  Lanier  fresh  in  its  memory. 
As  one  enters  McCoy  Hall  and  notices  the  life- 
size  portraits  of  the  first  president  and  the  first 
members  of  the  faculty,  he  misses  the  face  of 
Lanier ;  but  on  entering  Donavan  Hall,  just  at 
the  end  of  the  main  hallway,  he  finds  himself  in 
a  room  dedicated  to  the  highest  uses  of  poetry. 
There  are  pictures  of  men  who  have  delivered 
lectures  on  the  Percy  Turnbull  and  Donavan 
foundations,  manuscript  letters  of  distinguished 
American  poets  and  critics,  and  the  bust  of 
Lanier,  whose  spirit  seems  to  dominate  the  sur- 


BRONZE   BUST   OF   SIDNEY  LANIER 
By  Ephraim  Keyser,  at  Johns  Hopkins  University 


AT  JOHNS   HOPKINS   UNIVERSITY   263 

roundings.  It  is  the  best  of  the  likenesses  of 
the  poet,  and  is  the  source  of  admiration  to  all 
visitors,  as  well  as  an  inspiration  to  all  who 
labor  at  Johns  Hopkins.  Those  who  were  never 
thrilled  by  the  lustre  of  his  dark  eyes  or  never 
heard  the  tones  of  his  voice  as  he  interpreted 
passages  of  great  poetry,  may  find  some  satis 
faction  in  such  an  image. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE    NEW    SOUTH 

WHILE  Lanier  was  finding  his  place  in  the  larger 
spheres  of  scholarship,  of  music,  and  of  poetry, 
he  constantly  returned  in  thought  and  imagina 
tion  to  the  South.  Even  after  1877,  when  he 
and  his  family  became  residents  of  Baltimore,  his 
correspondence  with  his  father  and  brother  kept 
him  in  touch  with  that  section.  He  continued  to 
read  Southern  newspapers  and  to  follow  with  in 
terest  Southern  development.  In  his  desk  he  kept 
a  regular  drawer  for  matters  pertaining  to  the 
South.  Both  from  his  experience,  which  enabled 
him  to  enter  with  unusual  sympathy  into  the  life 
of  the  South,  and  from  the  larger  point  of  view 
gained  from  his  life  in  other  sections,  his  observa 
tions  on  Southern  life  and  literature  are  of  spe 
cial  value.  They  show  that  he  was  not  such  a 
detached  figure  as  has  been  frequently  thought. 
He  was  of  the  South,  and  took  delight  in  every 
evidence  of  her  progress.  He  sometimes  de 
spaired  of  her  future  —  so  much  so  that  he  urged 
his  brother  to  come  to  Baltimore  in  1879.  He 
had  little  patience  with  the  prevailing  type  of 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  265 

political  leader  at  the  time  when  the  Silver  Bill 
was  passed,  so  he  wrote,  June  8, 1879,  to  Clifford 
Lanier :  — 

"  I  cannot  contemplate  with  any  patience  your 
stay  in  the  South.  In  my  soberest  moments  I 
can  perceive  no  outlook  for  that  land.  Our  re 
presentatives  in  Congress  have  acted  with  such 
consummate  unwisdom  that  one  may  say  we  have 

no  future  there.    Mr.  and  Mr. (as 

precious  a  pair  of  rascals  as  ever  wrought  upon 
the  ignorance  of  a  country)  have  disgusted  all 
thoughtful  men  of  whatever  party ;  while  the 
shuffling  of  our  better  men  on  the  question  of 
public  honesty,  their  folly  in  allowing  such  people 
as  Blaine  and  Conkling  to  taunt  them  into  cheap 
huiiings  back  of  defiance  (as  the  silly  Southern 
newspapers  term  it),  their  inconceivable  mistake 
in  permitting  the  stalwart  Republicans  to  arrange 
all  the  issues  of  the  campaign  and  to  bring  on  the 
battle,  not  only  whenever  they  want  it,  but  on 
whatever  ground  they  choose,  instead  of  manfully 
holding  before  the  people  the  real  issues  of  the 
time,  —  the  tariff,  the  prodigious  abuses  clustered 
about  the  capitol  at  Washington,  the  restriction 
of  granting  powers  in  Congress,  the  non-inter 
ference  theory  of  government,  —  all  these  things 
have  completely  obscured  the  admitted  good  in 
tentions  of  Morgan  and  Lamar  and  their  fellows, 
and  have  entirely  alienated  the  feelings  of  men 


266  SIDNEY   LANIER 

who  at  first  were  quite  won  over  to  them.  The 
present  extra  session  has  been  from  the  beginning 
a  piece  of  absurdity  such  as  the  world  probably 
never  saw  before.  Our  men  are  such  mere  poli 
ticians,  that  they  have  never  yet  discovered  — 
what  the  least  thoughtful  statesmanship  ought  to 
have  perceived  at  the  close  of  our  war  —  that  the 
belief  in  the  sacredness  and  greatness  of  the 
American  Union  among  the  millions  of  the  North 
and  of  the  great  Northwest  is  really  the  principle 
which  conquered  us.  As  soon  as  we  invaded  the 
North  and  arrayed  this  sentiment  in  arms  against 
us,  our  swift  destruction  followed.  But  how  soon 
they  have  forgotten  Gettysburg !  That  the  pre 
sence  of  United  States  troops  at  the  polls  is  an 
abuse  no  sober  man  will  deny ;  but  to  attempt  to 
remedy  it  at  this  time,  when  the  war  is  so  lately 
over,  when  the  North  is  naturally  sensitive  as  to 
securing  the  hard-won  results  of  it,  when,  con 
sequently,  every  squeak  of  a  penny  whistle  is 
easily  interpreted  into  a  rebel  yell  by  the  artful 
devices  of  Mr.  Elaine  and  his  crew,  —  this  was 
simply  to  invade  the  North  again  as  we  did  in 
'64.  And  we  have  met  precisely  another  Gettys 
burg.  The  whole  community  is  uneasy  as  to  the 
silver  bill  and  the  illimitable  folly  of  the  green- 
backers  ;  business  men  anxiously  await  the  ad 
journment  of  Congress,  that  they  may  be  able  to 
lay  their  plans  with  some  sense  of  security  against 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  267 

a  complete  reversal  of  monetary  conditions  by 
some  silly  legislation ;  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  a  quiet  man  in  the  Republic  to  whom  the 
whole  political  caucus  at  Washington  is  not  a 
shame  and  a  sorrow. 

"  And  thus,  as  I  said,  it  really  seems  as  if  any 
prosperity  at  the  South  must  come  long  after 
your  time  and  mine.  Our  people  have  failed  to 
perceive  the  deeper  movements  under-running 
the  times ;  they  lie  wholly  off,  out  of  the  stream  of 
thought,  and  whirl  their  poor  old  dead  leaves  of 
recollection  round  and  round,  in  a  piteous  eddy 
that  has  all  the  wear  and  tear  of  motion  without 
any  of  the  rewards  of  progress.  By  the  best  in 
formation  I  can  get,  the  country  is  substantially 
poorer  now  than  when  the  war  closed,  and  South 
ern  securities  have  become  simply  a  catchword. 
The  looseness  of  thought  among  our  people,  the 

unspeakable  rascality  of  corporations  like  M 

—  how  long  is  it  going  to  take  us  to  remedy 
these  things  ?  Whatever  is  to  be  done,  you  and 
I  can  do  our  part  of  it  far  better  here  than  there. 
Come  away." 

The  very  next  year,  however,  he  wrote  his 
essay  on  the  New  South,  showing  a  far  more 
hopeful  view.  After  reading  for  two  years  the 
newspapers  of  Georgia,  with  a  view  to  under 
standing  the  changed  conditions  in  his  native 
State,  Lanier  published  in  October,  1880,  an 


268  SIDNEY   LANIER 

article  on  that  subject  in  "Scribner's  Maga 
zine."  l  To  one  who  reads  it  with  the  expecta 
tion  of  getting  an  idea  of  the  forces  that  have 
made  the  New  South,  it  is  sadly  disappointing ; 
for  he  is  told  at  once  that  the  New  South  means 
small  farming,  and  the  article  deals  largely  with 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  small  farms  and  a 
consequent  diversity  of  products.  Insignificant 
as  such  a  study  may  seem,  it  is  noteworthy  as 
showing  Lanier's  interest  in  practical  affairs.  It 
has  been  seen  that  ever  since  the  war  he  had 
been  interested  in  the  redemption  of  the  agri 
cultural  life  of  the  South,  that  this  was  the 
subject  of  his  first  important  poem.  Since  the 
writing  of  "  Corn "  and  of  the  earlier  dialect 
poems,  he  had  frequently  commented  on  the 
future  of  the  South  as  to  be  determined  largely 
by  an  improved  agricultural  system.  To  him  the 
best  evidence  of  the  enduring  character  of  the 
new  civilization  was  a  democracy,  growing  out 
of  a  vital  revolution  in  the  farming  economy  of 
the  South.  "  The  great  rise  of  the  small  farmer 
in  the  Southern  States  during  the  last  twenty 
years,"  he  says,  "becomes  the  notable  circum 
stance  of  the  period,  in  comparison  with  which 
noisier  events  signify  nothing."  The  hero  of  the 
sketch  is  a  small  farmer  "  who  commenced  work 
after  the  war  with  his  own  hands,  not  a  dollar 

1  Retrospects  and  Prospects,  pp.  104-135. 


THE  NEW   SOUTH  269 

in  his  pocket,  and  now  owns  his  plantation,  has 
it  well  stocked,  no  mortgage  or  debt  of  any  kind 
on  it,  and  a  little  money  to  lend."  Lanier  clips 
from  his  newspaper  files  passages  indicating  the 
constantly  increasing  diversity  of  crops.  The 
reader  is  carried  into  the  country  fairs  and  along 
the  roads  and  through  plantations  by  a  man  who 
had  a  realistic  sense  of  what  was  going  on  in  the 
whole  State  of  Georgia.  "  The  last  few  years," 
he  says,  "  have  witnessed  a  very  decided  improve 
ment  in  Georgia  farming :  moon-planting  and 
other  vulgar  superstitions  are  exploding,  the  in 
telligent  farmer  is  deriving  more  assistance  from 
the  philosopher,  the  naturalist,  and  the  chemist, 
and  he  who  is  succeeding  best  is  he  who  has 
thirty  or  forty  cattle,  sheep,  hogs,  and  poultry  of 
his  own  raising,  together  with  good-sized  barns 
and  meat-houses,  filled  from  his  own  fields,  in 
stead  of  from  the  West." 

Lanier  saw  that  out  of  this  growth  in  small 
farming  —  this  agricultural  prosperity  —  would 
come  changes  of  profound  significance.  He  saw 
an  intimate  relation  between  politics,  social  life, 
morality,  art,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  bread- 
giver  earth  on  the  other.  "  One  has  only  to  re 
member,  particularly  here  in  America,  whatever 
crop  we  hope  to  reap  in  the  future,  —  whether  it 
be  a  crop  of  poems,  of  paintings,  of  symphonies, 
of  constitutional  safeguards,  of  virtuous  behav- 


270  SIDNEY   LANIER 

iors,  of  religious  exaltation,  —  we  have  got  to 
bring  it  out  of  the  ground  with  palpable  plows 
and  with  plain  farmer's  forethought,  in  order  to 
see  that  a  vital  revolution  in  the  farming  econ 
omy  of  the  South,  if  it  is  actually  occurring,  is 
necessarily  carrying  with  it  all  future  Southern 
politics  and  Southern  relations  and  Southern  art, 
and  that,  therefore,  such  an  agricultural  change 
is  the  one  substantial  fact  upon  which  any  really 
new  South  can  be  predicated."  It  has  been  seen 
that  Lanier  underrated  the  development  of  the 
manufacturing  interests  in  the  South  ;  and  yet 
who  does  not  see  that  with  all  the  industrial 
prosperity  of  this  section  during  the  last  twenty 
years,  the  most  crying  need  now  is  the  rehabili 
tation  of  the  South's  agricultural  life  ?  The  pre 
sent  aggressive  movement  in  the  direction  of  the 
improvement  of  the  rural  schools  is  a  confirma 
tion  of  Lanier's  vision  of  "  the  village  library, 
the  neighborhood  farmers'-club,  the  amateur 
Thespian  Society,  the  improvement  of  the  public 
schools,  the  village  orchestra,  all  manner  of  bet 
terments  and  gentilities  and  openings  out  into 
the  universe."  He  saw,  too,  the  effect  on  the 
negro  of  his  becoming  a  landowner,  and  the  con 
sequent  obliteration  of  the  color  line  in  politics. 
He  cites  from  his  newspaper  clippings  evidences 
of  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  negro  race,  — 
for  instance,  how  "  at  the  Atlanta  University  for 


THE  NEW  SOUTH  271 

colored  people,  which  is  endowed  by  the  State, 
the  progress  of  the  pupils,  the  clearness  of  their 
recitation,  their  excellent  behavior,  and  the  re 
markable  neatness  of  their  schoolrooms,  alto 
gether  convince  4  your  committee  that  the  colored 
race  are  capable  of  receiving  the  education  usu 
ally  given  at  such  institutions.'  "  He  sees  in  the 
appearance  of  the  negro  as  a  small  farmer  a 
transition  to  the  point  in  which  "  his  interests, 
his  hopes,  and  consequently  his  politics  become 
identical  with  those  of  all  other  small  farmers, 
whether  white  or  black." 

Much  as  has  been  accomplished,  however,  he 
looks  forward  with  expectancy  to  a  still  greater 
future :  "  Everywhere  the  huge  and  gentle  slopes 
kneel  and  pray  for  vineyards,  for  cornfields,  for 
cottages,  for  spires  to  rise  up  from  beyond  the 
oak-groves.  It  is  a  land  where  there  is  never  a 
day  of  summer  or  of  winter  when  a  man  cannot 
do  a  full  day's  work  in  the  open  field ;  all  the 
products  meet  there,  as  at  nature's  own  agricul 
tural  fair.  ...  It  is  because  these  blissful  ranges 
are  still  clamorous  for  human  friendship ;  it  is 
because  many  of  them  are  actually  virgin  to 
plow,  pillar,  axe,  or  mill-wheel,  while  others  have 
known  only  the  insulting  and  mean  cultivation 
of  the  early  immigrants  who  scratched  the  sur 
face  for  cotton  a  year  or  two,  then  carelessly 
abandoned  all  to  sedge  and  sassafras,  and  saun- 


272  SIDNEY   LANIER 

tered  on  toward  Texas:  it  is  thus  that  these 
lands  are  with  sadder  significance  than  that  of 
small  farming,  also  a  New  South." 

In  order  to  understand  the  development  of 
the  New  South,  here  briefly  indicated,  and  in 
order  to  appreciate  what  Lanier  really  accom 
plished,  two  types  of  Southerners  must  be  clearly 
distinguished.  After  the  war  the  conservative 
Southerner  —  ranging  all  the  way  from  the  fiery 
Bourbon  to  the  strong  and  worthy  protagonist 
of  the  old  order  —  failed  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  defeat.  He  interpreted  the  conflict 
as  the  triumph  of  brute  force,  —  sheer  material 
prosperity,  —  and  comforted  himself  with  the 
thought  that  many  of  the  noblest  causes  had 
gone  down  in  defeat.  He  threshed  over  the 
arguments  of  Calhoun  with  regard  to  the  Con 
stitution  of  1787.  He  quoted  Scripture  in  de 
fense  of  slavery,  or  tried  to  continue  slavery  — 
in  spirit,  if  not  in  name.  He  saw  no  hope  for 
the  negro,  and  looked  for  his  speedy  deteriora 
tion  under  freedom.  Compelled  by  force  of  cir 
cumstances  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the 
Federal  government,  he  was  still  dominated  by 
the  ideas  of  separation.  He  saw  «o  future  for 
the  nation.  "  This  once  fair  temple  of  liberty," 
one  of  them  said,  —  "  rent  from  the  bottom, 
desecrated  by  the  orgies  of  a  half -mad  crew  of 
fanatics  and  fools,  knaves,  negroes,  and  Jacob- 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  273 

ins,  abandoned  wholly  by  its  original  worshipers 
—  stands  as  Babel  did  of  old,  a  melancholy  monu 
ment  of  the  frustrate  hopes  and  heaven-aspiring 
ambition  of  its  builders." 

With  him  the  passing  away  of  the  age  of 
chivalry  was  as  serious  a  matter  as  it  was  to 
Burke.  He  magnified  the  life  before  the  war 
as  the  most  glorious  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
He  saw  none  of  its  defects  ;  he  resented  criticism, 
either  by  Northerners  or  by  his  own  people. 
He  opposed  the  public  school  system,  as  "  Yan- 
keeish  and  infidel,"  stoutly  championing  the  sys 
tem  of  education  which  had  prevailed  under  the 
old  order.  He  recognized  no  standards.  "  We 
fearlessly  assert,"  said  one  of  them,  speaking  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  Southern  universities, 
"  that  in  this  university,  the  standard  is  higher, 
the  education  more  thorough,  and  the  work  done 
by  both  teachers  and  students  is  far  greater, 
than  in  Princeton,  or  Yale,  or  Harvard,  or  in 
any  other  Northern  college  or  university."  If 
he  ventured  into  the  field  of  literary  criticism, 
he  maintained  that  the  Old  South  had  a  liter 
ature  equal  to  that  of  New  England  ;  if  he  had 
doubts  upon  that  subject,  he  looked  forward  to 
a  time  not  far  off  when  the  Southern  cause  would 
find  monumental  expression  in  a  commanding 
literature.  If  he  thought  on  theological  or  philo 
sophical  subjects,  he  thought  in  terms  of  the 


274  SIDNEY   LANIER 

seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  The  watch 
words  of  modern  life  were  so  many  red  flags  to 
him,  —  science  the  enemy  of  religion,  German 
philosophy  a  denial  of  the  depravity  of  man, 
democracy  the  product  of  French  infidelity  and 
of  false  humanitarianism,  industrial  prosperity 
the  inveterate  foe  of  the  graces  of  life.  To  use 
Lanier's  words,  he  "  failed  to  perceive  the  deeper 
movements  underrunning  the  times."  Defeated 
in  a  long  war  and  inheriting  the  provincialism 
and  sensitiveness  of  a  feudal  order,  he  remained 
proud  in  his  isolation.  He  went  to  work  with 
a  stubborn  and  unconquered  spirit,  with  the  idea 
that  sometime  in  the  future  all  the  principles 
for  which  he  had  stood  would  triumph. 

Into  the  hands  of  such  men  the  reconstruc 
tion  governments  played.  Worse  even  than  the 
effect  of  excessive  taxation,  misgove'rnment,  and 
despair  produced  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  was 
the  permanent  effect  produced  on  the  Southern 
mind.  The  prophecies  that  had  been  made  with 
regard  to  the  triumph  of  despotism  seemed  to  be 
fulfilled ;  every  contention  that  had  been  made 
in  1861  with  regard  to  the  dangers  of  Federal 
usurpation  seemed  justified  in  the  acts  of  the 
government.  The  political  equality  of  the  negro, 
guaranteed  by  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  and  the 
attempt  to  give  him  social  equality,  were  stub 
born  facts  which  seemed  to  overthrow  the  more 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  275 

liberal  ideas  of  Lincoln  and  of  those  Southern 
leaders  who  after  the  war  hoped  that  the  mag 
nanimity  of  the  North  would  be  equal  to  the  great 
task  ahead  of  the  nation.  The  conservative  lead 
ers  were  invested  with  a  dignity  that  recalls  the 
popularity  of  Burke  when  his  predictions  with 
regard  to  the  French  Revolution  were  realized. 
During  all  the  years  that  have  intervened  since 
reconstruction  days,  the  conservative  has  had  as 
a  resource  for  leadership  his  harking  back  to 
those  days.  The  demagogue  and  the  reactionary 
—  enemies  of  the  children  of  light  —  have  always 
been  able  to  inflame  the  populace  with  appeals 
to  the  memories  and  issues  of  the  past.  Such 
men  have  forgot  nothing  and  learned  nothing.1 

In  striking  contrast  with  the  conservative 
Southerner  has  been  the  progressive  Southerner, 
a  type  ranging  all  the  way  from  the  unwise 
and  unreasonable  reformer  to  the  well-balanced 
and  sympathetic  worker,  who  has  endeavored  to 
make  the  transition  from  the  old  order  to  the 
new  a  normal  and  healthy  one.  If  the  qualities 
which  have  made  Lanier's  progress  possible  aae 
recalled,  —  his  lack  of  prejudice,  his  inexhausti 
ble  energy,  the  alertness  and  modernness  of  his 
mind,  his  ability  to  find  joy  in  constructive  work, 

1  I  have  here  sketched  a  composite  picture  ;  it  is  like  no 
one  man,  but  the  type  is  recognizable.  It  is  the  result  of  a 
study  of  the  magazines,  newspapers,  and  biographies  of  the 
period  from  1865  to  1880.  The  type  is  not  extinct. 


276  SIDNEY   LANIER 

his  adoption  of  the  national  point  of  view, — 
then  the  reader  may  see  the  elements  that  have 
made  possible  a  New  South.  The  same  spirit  ap 
plied  to  industry,  to  education,  to  religion,  is  now 
seen  everywhere.  The  term  "New  South,"  used 
by  Lanier  and  others,  is  meant  in  no  way  as  a 
reproach  to  the  Old  South,  —  it  is  simply  the 
recognition  of  a  changed  social  life  due  to  one  of 
the  greatest  catastrophes  in  history.  In  the  early 
eighties  it  was  employed  by  four  Georgians,  who 
had  a  right  to  use  it,  —  Benjamin  H.  Hill,  Atticus 
G.  Haygood,  Henry  Grady,  and  Sidney  Lanier. 
Georgia  was  the  Southern  State  that  led  in  this 
progressive  work.  Here  the  readjustment  came 
sooner,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  a  more  demo 
cratic  people  lived  there,  and  also  that  the  bur 
dens  of  reconstruction  were  less  severe.  Virginia 
gave  to  the  nation  at  the  time  of  the  foundation 
of  the  republic  a  group  of  statesmen  rarely  ex 
celled  in  the  history  of  the  world.  South  Carolina 
statesmen  led  in  the  movement  towards  secession, 
and  her  people  were  the  first  to  make  an  aggres 
sive  movement  in  that  direction.  The  leadership 
of  the  New  South  must  be  found  in  a  group  of 
far-seeing,  liberal-minded,  aggressive  Georgians. 
The  action  of  the  State  legislature  in  repealing 
the  ordinance  of  secession  and  accepting  the  eman 
cipation  of  slaves  within  one  minute,  was  charac 
teristic  of  her  later  work.  In  1866,  Alexander 


THE   NEW  SOUTH  277 

H.  Stephens  and  Benjamin  H.  Hill  —  one  before 
the  legislature  of  Georgia  and  the  other  before 
Tammany  Hall  —  sounded  the  note  of  patience, 
of  nationalism,  and  of  hope.  "  There  was  a  South 
of  slavery  and  secession,"  said  the  latter  ;  "  that 
South  is  dead.  There  is  a  South  of  Union  and 
freedom;  that  South,  thank  God!  is  living, 
breathing,  growing  every  hour."  These  words 
became  the  text  of  the  now  celebrated  address  of 
another  Georgian  who  twenty  years  later,  before 
the  New  England  Club  of  New  York,  gave  nota 
ble  expression  to  his  own  ideals  and  those  who 
had  wrought  with  him  in  the  genuine  reconstruc 
tion  of  the  South.  Henry  Grady,  as  editor  of 
the  Atlanta  "  Constitution,"  was,  after  1876,  an 
exponent  of  the  idea  that  the  future  of  the  South 
lay  not  primarily  in  politics,  but  in  an  industrial 
order  which  should  be  the  basis  of  a  more  endur 
ing  civilization.  At  his  advice,  as  Joel  Chandler 
Harris  says,  everybody  began  to  take  a  day  off 
from  politics  occasionally  and  devote  themselves 
to  the  upbuilding  of  the  resources  of  the  State. 
Another  Georgian,  the  late  John  B.  Gordon, 
united  with  Grady  and  others  in  saying  "  a  bold 
and  manly  word  in  behalf  of  the  American  Union 
in  the  ear  of  the  South,  and  a  bold  and  manly 
word  in  behalf  of  the  South  in  the  ear  of  the 
North."  While  recounting  the  last  days  of  the 
Confederacy,  he  awoke  in  Northern  hearts  an 


278  SIDNEY   LANIER 

admiration  for  Lee  and  in  Southern  hearts  an 
admiration  for  Grant,  and  in  all  an  aspiration 
towards  nationalism. 

Another  Georgian,  Atticus  G.  Haygood, — pre 
sident  of  Emory  College  and  afterwards  bishop 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, — 
voiced  the  sentiment  of  the  liberal  South  with  re 
gard  to  the  negro,  in  a  book  whose  title,  "Our  Bro 
ther  in  Black,"  sufficiently  indicates  the  spirit  in 
which  it  was  written.  In  a  Thanksgiving  sermon 
on  the  New  South,  delivered  in  1881,  he  criti 
cised  severely  the  croakers  and  the  demagogues 
who  were  endeavoring  to  mislead  the  people,  and 
reviewed  with  sympathy  the  great  progress  that 
had  been  made  since  the  war.  He  pleads  guilty 
to  the  charge  of  having  new  light  and  is  glad 
of  it.  He  points  out  with  keen  insight  the  illit 
eracy  of  the  masses  of  the  Southern  people  and 
the  lack  of  educational  facilities.  A  movement 
for  the  development  of  a  public  school  system  in 
the  South  was  led  by  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  a  Confed 
erate  soldier  of  Georgia  stock.  He  became  an 
evangelist  in  the  crusade  for  public  education, 
announcing  before  State  legislatures  the  princi 
ple  upon  which  a  true  democratic  order  might  be 
established.  "I  am  not  afraid  of  the  educated 
masses,"  he  said,  in  an  address  before  the  Georgia 
legislature;  "  I  would  rather  trust  the  masses  than 
king,  priest,  aristocracy,  or  established  church. 


THE   NEW  SOUTH  279 

No  nation  can  realize  its  full  possibility  unless  it 
builds  upon  the  education  of  the  whole  people." 

By  1885  the  forces  that  have  here  been  briefly 
sketched  were  well  under  way  throughout  the 
South.  Factories  were  prospering,  farm  products 
were  becoming  more  diversified,  more  farmers 
owned  their  own  places,  a  public  school  system 
was  firmly  established  in  all  the  leading  cities 
and  towns,  colleges  and  universities  —  some  of 
the  strongest  dating  from  the  period  just  after 
the  war  —  were  enabled  to  increase  their  endow 
ments  and  to  modernize  their  work,  the  national 
spirit  was  growing,  and  a  more  liberal  view  of 
religion  was  being  maintained.  A  day  of  hope, 
of  freedom,  of  progress,  had  dawned. 

It  was  natural  that  along  with  all  these 
changes,  and  indeed  anticipating  some  of  them, 
there  should  arise  a  group  of  Southern  writers. 
Indeed,  immediately  after  the  war  there  was  a 
marked  tendency  in  the  direction  of  literary  work 
—  "  an  avalanche  of  literature  in  a  devastated 
country."  Magazines  were  started  and  books 
were  published  in  abundance.  The  literary  ac 
tivity  was  due,  no  doubt,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
poverty  of  men  and  women :  some  who  would 
have  looked  down  upon  literature  as  a  profession 
before  the  war  were  now  eager  to  do  anything 
to  keep  starvation  from  the  door.  Furthermore, 
there  was  a  great  desire  among  some  people  to 


280  SIDNEY   LANIER 

have  the  Southern  side  of  the  war  well  repre 
sented  before  the  civilized  world.  Hence  arose 
innumerable  biographies,  histories,  and  historical 
novels,  and  hence  the  demand  for  Southern  text 
books. 

It  is  clearly  impossible  to  give  any  adequate 
sketch  of  this  literary  awakening,  —  if  so  it  may 
be  called,  when  contrasted  with  a  later  one.  Of  the 
magazines  which  were  started,  the  most  important 
were  "Debow's  Review,"  "devoted  to  the  restora 
tion  of  the  Southern  States  and  the  development 
of  the  wealth  and  resources  of  the  country,"  whose 
motto  was,  "  Light  up  the  torches  of  industry ; " 
the  "  Southern  Review,"  edited  by  Dr.  A.  T. 
Bledsoe  and  William  Hand  Browne  and  dedi 
cated  "  to  the  despised,  the  disfranchised,  and  the 
down-trodden  people  of  the  South  ;  "  "  The  Land 
We  Love,"  started  in  Charlotte,  N.  C.,  by  Gen. 
D.  H.  Hill,  and  devoted  to  literature,  military 
history,  and  agriculture ;  "  Scott's  Monthly," 
published  in  Atlanta,  "  Southern  Field  and  Fire 
side,"  in  Raleigh,  and  "  The  Crescent  Monthly," 
in  New  Orleans  ;  the  "  New  Eclectic  Magazine  " 
and  its  successor,  the  "  Southern  Magazine," 
published  by  the  Turnbull  Brothers  of  Balti 
more  ;  and,  as  if  Charleston  had  not  had  enough 
magazines  to  die  before  the  war,  the  "  Nineteenth 
Century,"  in  that  city.  Most  of  these  had  but  a 
short  career,  and  none  of  them  survived  longer 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  281 

than  1878.  There  was  in  them  a  continual  cry 
ing  out  for  Southern  literature  which  might 
worthily  represent  the  Southern  people.  The  re 
sponse  came,  too  —  so  far  as  quantity  was  con 
cerned.  One  of  the  editors  remarked  that  he 
had  enough  poetry  on  hand  to  last  seven  years 
and  five  months. 

Of  these  magazines  the  most  important  was  the 
"  Southern  Magazine,"  published  at  Baltimore 
from  1871  to  1875,  —  a  magazine  which  came 
nearest  filling  the  place  occupied  by  the  "  South 
ern  Literary  Messenger  "  before  the  war.  While 
it  was  somewhat  eclectic  in  its  character,  —  re 
printing  articles  from  the  English  magazines,  — 
it  had  as  contributors  a  group  of  promising  young 
scholars  and  writers.  The  editor  was  William 
Hand  Browne,  now  professor  of  English  literature 
in  Johns  Hopkins  University.  Professor  Gilder- 
sleeve,  then  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  Pro 
fessor  Thomas  R.  Price,  then  professor  of  Eng 
lish  at  Randolph-Macon,  James  Albert  Harrison, 
later  the  biographer  and  editor  of  Poe,  and  Mar 
garet  J.  Preston  were  regular  contributors.  Rich 
ard  Malcolm  Johnston  contributed  his  "Dukes- 
borough  Tales  "  to  it.  One  of  the  publishers  of 
the  magazine,  Mr.  Lawrence  Turnbull,  visited 
Lanier  at  Macon  in  1871  and  became  much  in 
terested  in  him.  To  the  magazine  Lanier  con 
tributed  "  Prospects  and  Retrospects  "  (March 


282  SIDNEY   LANIER 

and  April,  1871),  "  A  Song  "  and  "  A  Seashore 
Grave"  (July,  1871),  "Nature-Metaphors" 
(February,  1872),  "San  Antonio  de  Bexar " 
(July  and  August,  1873),  and  "  Peace  "  (Oc 
tober,  1874). 

Of  the  books  published  during  this  period, 
few  have  survived.  John  Esten  Cooke's  novels 
and  his  lives  of  Stonewall  Jackson  and  Lee, 
two  or  three  collections  of  the  war  poetry  of  the 
South,  Gayarre's  histories,  the  "  War  between 
the  States,"  by  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  Craven's 
"  Prison  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,"  and  Dabney's 
"Defense  of  Virginia"  are  perhaps  the  most  sig 
nificant.  J.  Wood  Davidson's  "  Living  Writers 
of  the  South,"  published  in  1869,  gives  the  best 
general  idea  of  the  extent  and  quality  of  the  post- 
bellum  writing.  Noteworthy,  also,  is  a  series  of 
text-books  projected  with  the  idea  that  the  moral 
and  mental  training  of  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  South  should  no  longer  be  intrusted  to 
teachers  and  books  imported  from  abroad.  As 
planned  originally,  the  scheme  called  for  Bledsoe's 
Mathematics,  Maury's  Geographies,  Holmes's 
Readers,  Gildersleeve's  Latin  Grammar,  histories 
of  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina  by  Gayarre 
and  Simms  respectively,  scientific  books  by  the 
Le  Conte  brothers,  and  English  Classics  by 
Richard  Malcolm  Johnston. 

So  much  needs  to  be  said  of  the  character  of 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  283 

the  literature  immediately  succeeding  the  war,  if 
for  no  other  reason,  that  it  may  be  contrasted 
with  the  literature  of,  say,  the  period  from  1875 
to  1885.  With  the  death  of  Timrod  in  1867, 
and  of  Simms,  Longstreet,  and  Prentice  in  1870, 
the  old  order  of  Southern  writers  had  passed 
away.  By  1875  a  new  group  of  writers  had  be 
gun  their  work,  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  best  repre 
senting  the  transition  from  one  to  the  other.  The 
younger  writers  either  had  been  Confederate  sol 
diers,  or  had  been  intimately  identified  with  those 
who  were.  They  began  to  write,  not  out  of  re 
sponse  to  a  demand  for  distinctively  Southern 
literature,  but  because  they  had  the  artistic  spirit, 
the  desire  to  create.  They  were  interested  in 
describing  Southern  scenery,  and  in  portraying 
types  of  character  in  the  social  life  of  their  re 
spective  States.  Unlike  most  of  the  literature  of 
the  Old  South,  the  new  literature  was  related 
directly  to  the  life  of  the  people.  Men  began 
to  describe  Southern  scenery,  not  some  fantastic 
world  of  dreamland ;  sentimentalism  was  super 
seded  by  a  healthy  realism.  The  writers  fell  in 
with  contemporary  tendencies  and  followed  the 
lead  of  Bret  Harte  and  Mark  Twain,  who  had 
begun  to  write  humorous  local  sketches  and  inci 
dents.  With  them  literature  was  not  a  diversion, 
but  a  business.  They  were  willing  to  be  known 
as  men  of  letters  who  made  their  living  by  litera- 


284  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ture.  They  stood,  too,  for  the  national,  rather 
than  the  sectional,  spirit.  "  What  does  it  mat 
ter,"  said  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  "  whether  I  am 
Northerner  or  Southerner  if  I  am  true  to  truth, 
and  true  to  that  larger  truth,  my  own  true  self  ? 
My  idea  is  that  truth  is  more  important  than 
sectionalism,  and  that  literature  that  can  be 
labeled  Northern,  Southern,  Western,  or  East 
ern,  is  not  worth  labeling  at  all."  Again,  he  said, 
speaking  of  the  ideal  Southern  writer :  "  He 
mus't  be  Southern  and  yet  cosmopolitan  ;  he  must 
be  intensely  local  in  feeling,  but  utterly  unpreju 
diced  and  unpartisan  as  to  opinions,  tradition, 
and  sentiment.  Whenever  we  have  a  genuine 
Southern  literature,  it  will  be  American  and 
cosmopolitan  as  well.  Only  let  it  be  the  work  of 
genius,  and  it  will  take  all  sections  by  storm." 

And  it  did  take  all  sections  by  storm.  Con 
trary  to  the  idea  which  had  prevailed  after  the 
war  that  Northern  people  would  be  slow  to  re 
cognize  Southern  genius,  it  must  be  said  that 
Northern  magazines,  Northern  publishers,  and 
Northern  readers  made  possible  the  success  of 
Southern  writers.  In  1873,  "  Scribner's  Maga 
zine  "  sent  a  special  train  through  the  South  with 
the  purpose  of  securing  a  series  of  articles  on 
"  the  great  South."  While  in  New  Orleans,  Mr. 
.Edward  King,  who  had  charge  of  the  expedi 
tion,  discovered  George  W.  Cable,  whose  story, 


THE  NEW   SOUTH  285 

"  'Sieur  George,"  appeared  in  "  Scribner's  Maga 
zine  "  in  October  of  that  year.  Between  that 
time  and  1881  the  magazine  published,  in  addi 
tion  to  Cable's  stories,  —  afterwards  collected 
into  the  volume  "  Old  Creole  Days,"  -  -  stories 
and  poems  by  John  Esten  Cooke,  Margaret  J. 
Preston,  Maurice  Thompson,  Mrs.  Burnett,  Mrs. 
Harrison,  Irwin  Russell,  Richard  Malcolm  John 
ston,  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  and  Sidney  Lanier. 
In  an  editorial  of  September,  1881,  the  editor, 
referring  to  the  fact  that  no  less  than  seven 
articles  by  Southerners  had  appeared  in  a  recent 
number  of  "  Scribner's,"  said :  "  We  are  glad 
to  recognize  the  fact  of  a  permanent  productive 
force  in  literature  in  the  Southern  States.  .  .  . 
We  welcome  the  new  writers  to  the  great  repub 
lic  of  letters  with  all  heartiness."  "  The  Century 
Magazine,"  the  successor  of  "  Scribner's,"  con 
tinued  to  be  the  patron  of  the  new  Southern 
writers.  The  number  for  April,  1884,  contained 
Lanier's  portrait  as  a  frontispiece,  a  sketch  of 
Lanier  by  William  Hayes  Ward,  Thomas  Nelson 
Page's  "  Marse  Chan,"  an  installment  of  Cable's 
"  Dr.  Sevier,"  Walter  B.  Hill's  article  on  "  Uncle 
Tom  Without  a  Cabin,"  and  William  Preston 
Johnston's  poem,  "  The  Master." 

"  Harper's  Magazine,"  in  January,  1874,  be 
gan  a  series  of  articles  on  the  New  South,  by 
Edwin  De  Leon,  and  in  the  following  year  pub- 


286  SIDNEY   LANIER 

lished  a  series  of  articles  by  Constance  F.  Wool- 
son,  giving  sketches  of  Florida  and  western 
North  Carolina.  In  May,  1887,  appeared  an  ar 
ticle  giving  the  first  complete  survey  of  Southern 
literature,  which,  according  to  the  author,  had 
introduced  into  our  national  literature  "  a  stream 
of  rich,  warm  blood."  The  "Independent,"  a 
paper  which  had  seemed  to  Southerners  extremely 
severe  in  its  criticism  of  the  life  of  the  South,  is 
especially  connected  with  the  rising  fame  of  La 
mer.  The  editor  recognized  his  genius  while  he 
was  still  alive,  after  his  death  continued  to  pub 
lish  his  poems,  and  in  1884  wrote  the  Memo 
rial  for  the  first  complete  edition  of  his  poems. 
Maurice  Thompson,  another  Southern  writer,  be 
came  its  literary  editor  in  1888. 

Nor  was  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  which  had 
been  identified  with  the  New  England  Renais 
sance,  slow  to  recognize  the  value  of  the  new 
Southern  story-writers  and  poets.  In  1873,  while 
Mr.  Howells  was  editor,  Maurice  Thompson's 
poem,  "  At  the  Window,"  was  hailed  by  the  edi 
tor  and  by  Longfellow  as  "  the  work  of  a  new 
and  original  singer,  fresh,  joyous,  and  true." 
The  author  received  encouraging  letters  from 
Lowell  and  Emerson.  In  the  same  year  and  in 
the  following  appeared  a  series  of  articles  entitled 
"  A  Rebel's  Recollections,"  by  George  Gary  Eg- 
gleston.  In  May,  1878,  appeared  Charles  Egbert 


THE  NEW   SOUTH  287 

Craddock's  first  story  of  the  Tennessee  Moun 
tains,  "  A  Dancing  Party  at  Harrison's  Cove." 
The  value  of  her  work  was  at  once  recognized  by 
Mr.  Ho  wells  and  his  successor,  Mr.  Aldrich.  In 
a  review  of  1880,  Cable's  stories  in  "  Old  Creole 
Days  "  are  characterized  "  as  fresh  in  matter,  as 
vivacious  in  treatment,  and  as  full  of  wit  as  were 
the  c  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp '  and  its  audacious 
fellows,  when  they  came,  while  they  are  much 
more  human  and  delicate  in  feeling."  In  Janu 
ary,  1885,  in  an  article  on  recent  American 
fiction,  appears  the  following  tribute  to  the  work 
of  recent  Southern  writers  :  "  It  is  not  the  sub 
jects  offered  by  Southern  writers  which  interest 
us  so  much  as  the  manifestation  which  seemed  to 
be  dying  out  of  our  literature.  We  welcome  the 
work  of  Mr.  Cable  and  Mr.  [sic]  Craddock,  be 
cause  it  is  large,  imaginative,  and  constantly  re 
sponsive  to  the  elemental  movements  of  human 
nature  ;  and  we  should  not  be  greatly  surprised 
if  the  historian  of  our  literature  a  few  generations 
hence,  should  take  note  of  an  enlargement  of 
American  letters  at  this  time  through  the  agency 
of  a  new  South.  .  .  .  The  North  refines  to  a  keen 
analysis,  the  South  enriches  through  a  generous 
imagination.  .  .  .  The  breadth  which  character 
izes  the  best  Southern  writing,  the  large  free 
handling,  the  confident  imagination,  are  legiti 
mate  results  of  the  careless  yet  masterful  and 


288  SIDNEY   LANIER 

hospitable  life  which  has  pervaded  that  section. 
We  have  had  our  laugh  at  the  florid,  coarse-fla 
vored  literature  which  has  not  yet  disappeared 
at  the  South,  but  we  are  witnessing  now  the  rise 
of  a  school  that  shows  us  the  worth  of  generous 
nature  when  it  has  been  schooled  and  ordered."  1 
The  effect  of  this  literature  on  Northern 
readers  was  altogether  wholesome,  and  minis 
tered  no  doubt  to  the  better  understanding  both 
of  the  Old  South  and  of  the  New.  The  stories  of 
Harris,  Page,  Cable,  and  Craddock  reached  the 
Northern  mind  to  a  degree  never  approached  by 
the  logic  of  Calhoun  or  the  eloquence  of  impetu 
ous  orators,  while  the  poems  of  Hayne  and  La- 
nier,  breathing  as  they  did  the  atmosphere  of  the 
larger  modern  world,  and  at  the  same  time  char 
acterized  by  the  warmth  and  richness  of  South 
ern  scenery  and  Southern  life,  ministered  in  the 
same  direction.  On  Southerners  the  effect  was 
stimulating  ;  one  of  the  younger  scholars  of  that 
time,  the  late  Professor  Baskervill,  recalled  "  the 
rapture  of  glad  surprise  with  which  each  new 
Southern  writer  was  hailed  as  he  or  she  revealed 
negro,  mountaineer,  cracker,  or  Creole  life  and 
character  to  the  world.  There  was  joy  in  behold 
ing  the  roses  of  romance  and  poetry  blossoming 
above  the  ashes  of  defeat  and  humiliation,  and 

1  In  1896  Mr.  Walter  H.  Page,  a  native  North  Carolinian, 
became  editor  of  the  "  Atlantic." 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  289 

that,  too,  among  a  people  hitherto  more  remark 
able  for  the  masterful  deeds  of  warrior  and 
statesman  than  for  the  finer,  rarer,  and  more 
artistic  creations  of  literary  genius."  * 

One  of  the  most  significant  characteristics  of 
the  Southern  writers  was  that  they  all  showed 
a  certain  discipline  in  their  artistic  work.  They 
had  little  patience  with  much  of  the  criticism  that 
had  prevailed  in  the  South.  As  early  as  1871 
the  editor  of  the  "  Southern  Magazine,"  in  a  re 
view  of  "  Southland  Writers,"  said :  "  We  shall 
not  have  a  literature  until  we  have  a  criticism 
which  can  justify  its  claims  to  be  deferred  to; 
intelligent  enough  to  explain  why  a  work  is  good 
or  bad,  .  .  .  courageous  enough  to  condemn  bad 
art  and  bad  workmanship,  no  matter  whose  it 
be;  to  say,  for  instance,  to  more  than  half  the 
writers  in  these  volumes :  '  Ladies,  you  may  be 
all  that  is  good,  noble,  and  fair  ;  you  may  be  the 
pride  of  society  and  the  lights  of  your  homes  ; 
so  far  as  you  are  Southern  women  our  hearts  are  at 
your  feet  —  but  you  have  neither  the  genius,  the 
learning,  nor  the  judgment  to  qualify  you  for  lit 
erature.'  "  In  the  same  magazine  for  June,  1874, 
Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  condemned  severely  the 
provincial  literary  criticism  which  had  prevailed, 

1  Baskervill's  Southern  Writers  is  the  best  studjr  that  has 
been  made  of  the  Southern  literature  of  this  period.  A  second 
volume  was  prepared  by  his  pupils  and  friends  after  his  death. 


290  SIDNEY   LANIER 

—  "  indiscriminate  adulations,  effervescing  com 
monplace,  shallowness  and  poverty  of  thought." 
"  No  foreign  ridicule,"  he  said,  "  however  richly 
deserved,  nothing  truly  either  of  logic  or  of 
laughter,  can  stop  this  growing  evil,  until  our 
own  scholars  and  thinkers  have  the  manliness 
and  honesty  to  discourage  instead  of  applauding 
such  manifestations  of  artistic  weakness  and  artis 
tic  platitudes  as  have  hitherto  been  foisted  upon 
us  by  persons  uncalled  and  unchosen  of  any  of 
the  muses.  .  .  .  Can  a  people's  mental  dignity 
and  sesthetical  culture  be  vindicated  by  patting 
incompetency  and  ignorance  and  self-sufficiency 
on  the  back?" 

Lanier  himself  wrote  to  Hayne,  May  26, 1873, 
commending  a  criticism  that  Hayne  had  passed 
upon  a  popular  Southern  novel :  "  I  have  not 
read  that  production ;  but  from  all  I  can  hear 
't  is  a  most  villainous,  poor,  pitiful  piece  of  work ; 
and  so  far  from  endeavoring  to  serve  the  South 
by  blindly  plastering  it  with  absurd  praises,  I 
think  all  true  patriots  ought  to  unite  in  redeem 
ing  the  land  from  the  imputation  that  such  books 
are  regarded  as  casting  honor  upon  the  section. 
God  forbid  we  should  really  be  brought  so  low 
as  that  we  must  perforce  brag  of  such  works ; 
and  God  be  merciful  to  that  man  (he  is  an 
Atlanta  editor)  who  boasted  that  sixteen  thou 
sand  of  these  books  had  been  sold  in  the  South ! 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  291 

This  last  damning  fact  ought  to  have  been  con 
cealed  at  the  risk  of  life,  limb,  and  fortune." 
Lanier  himself  saw  the  futility  of  such  praise 
of  his  own  work  by  the  Southern  people.  Refer 
ring  to  the  defense  made  of  his  Centennial  poem 
by  Southern  newspapers,  he  wrote  from  Macon : 
"  People  here  are  so  enthusiastic  in  my  favor  at 
present  that  they  are  quite  prepared  to  accept 
blindly  anything  that  comes  from  me.  Of  course 
I  understand  all  this,  and  any  success  seems 
cheap  which  depends  so  thoroughly  upon  local 
pride  as  does  my  present  position  with  the 
South."  And  again :  "  Much  of  this  praise  has 
come  from  the  section  in  which  he  was  born,  and 
there  is  reason  to  suspect  that  it  was  based  often 
on  sectional  pride  rather  than  on  any  genuine 
recognition  of  those  artistic  theories  of  which  his 
poem  is  —  so  far  as  he  now  knows  —  the  first 
embodiment.  Any  triumph  of  this  sort  is  cheap, 
because  wrongly  based,  and  to  an  earnest  artist 
is  intolerably  painful." 

Lanier 's  own  standards  of  criticism  did  not 
prevent  his  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  real 
artists  who  lived  in  the  South,  nor  his  encour 
agement  of  every  young  man  contemplating  an 
artistic  career.  He  wrote  to  Judge  Bleckley 
about  his  son :  "  I  am  charmed  at  finding  a 
Georgia  young  man  who  deliberately  leaves  the 
worn  highways  of  the  law  and  politics  for  the 


292  SIDNEY   LANIER 

rocky  road  of  Art,  and  I  wish  to  do  everything 
in  my  power  to  help  and  encourage  him."  Writ 
ing  to  George  Gary  Eggleston,  December  27, 
1876,  he  said  :  "  I  know  you  very  well  through 
your  '  Rebel's  Recollections,'  which  I  read  in 
book  form  some  months  ago  with  great  enter 
tainment.  Our  poor  South  has  so  few  of  the 
guild,  that  I  feel  a  personal  interest  in  the  works 
of  each  one."  His  letters  and  published  writ 
ings  bear  out  the  truth  of  this  statement.  It 

o 

has  already  been  seen  that  he  was  intimate  with 
Paul  Hamilton  Hayne,  who  had  encouraged  him 
to  undertake  the  literary  life  at  a  time  when  all 
other  forces  were  tending  in  another  direction. 
Lanier  criticised  in  detail  many  of  Hayne's 
poems.  In  a  review  of  his  poems  published  in 
the  "  Southern  Magazine,"  1874,  he  paid  a  nota 
ble  tribute  to  his  fellow  worker  in  the  realm  of 
letters.  He  does  not  fail  to  call  attention  to  trite 
similes,  worn  collocations  of  sound,  and  common 
place  sentiments  ;  and  also  his  diffuseness,  prin 
cipally  originating  in  a  lavishness  and  looseness 
of  adjectives.  At  the  same  time  he  praises  the 
melody  of  Hayne's  poetry,  especially  of  his  poem 
"  Fire  Pictures,"  which  he  compares  with  Poe's 
"  Bells."  In  his  book  on  Florida,  while  giving 
an  account  of  Southern  cities  which  travelers  are 
apt  to  pass  through  in  going  to  and  from  that 
State,  he  has  discriminating  and  sympathetic 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  293 

passages  on  Timrod,  Randall,  Jackson,  Hayne, 
and  others.  Of  Timrod  he  says :  "  Few  more 
spontaneous  or  delicate  songs  have  been  sung  in 
these  later  days  than  one  or  two  of  the  briefer 
lyrics.  It  is  thoroughly  evident  that  he  never 
had  time  to  learn  the  mere  craft  of  the  poet, 
the  technique  of  verse,  and  that  broader  associ 
ation  with  other  poets,  and  a  little  of  the  wine 
of  success,  without  which  no  man  ever  does  the 
very  best  he  might  do."  In  his  lectures  at  the 
Peabody  Institute  he  quoted  one  of  Timrod's 
sonnets,  prefacing  it  with  the  words :  "  And  as 
I  have  just  read  you  a  sonnet  from  one  of  the 
earliest  of  the  sonnet-writers,  let  me  now  clinch 
and  confirm  this  last  position  with  a  sonnet  from 
one  of  the  latest,  —  one  who  has  but  recently 
gone  to  that  Land  where,  as  he  wished  here, 
indeed  life  and  love  are  the  same ;  one  who,  I 
devoutly  believe,  if  he  had  lived  in  Sir  Philip's 
time,  might  have  been  Sir  Philip's  worthy  bro 
ther,  both  in  poetic  sweetness  and  in  honorable 
knighthood."  l 

He  was  one  of  the  first  to  recognize  the  genius 
of  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  whose  Uncle  Remus 
stories  he  first  read  in  the  "Atlanta  Constitu 
tion."  He  refers  in  his  article  on  the  New  South 
to  Uncle  Remus  as  a  "  famous  colored  philoso 
pher  of  Atlanta,  who  is  a  fiction  so  founded  upon 

1  Shakspere  and  His  Forerunners,  vol.  i,  p.  170. 


294  SIDNEY   LANIER 

fact  and  so  like  it  as  to  have  passed  into  true 
citizenship  and  authority,  along  with  Bottom  and 
Autolycus.  This  is  all  the  more  worth  giving, 
since  it  is  really  negro-talk,  and  not  that  suppo 
sititious  negro-minstrel  talk  which  so  often  goes 
for  the  original.  It  is  as  nearly  perfect  as  any 
dialect  can  well  be ;  and  if  one  had  only  some 
system  of  notation  by  which  to  convey  the  tones 
of  the  speaking  voice,  in  which  Brer  Remus  and 
Brer  Ab  would  say  these  things,  nothing  could 
be  at  once  more  fine  in  humor  and  pointed  in 
philosophy.  Negroes  on  the  corner  can  be  heard 
any  day  engaged  in  talk  that  at  least  makes 
one  think  of  Shakespeare's  clowns ;  but  half  the 
point  and  flavor  is  in  the  subtle  tone  of  voice, 
the  gesture,  the  glance,  and  these,  unfortunately, 
cannot  be  read  between  the  lines  by  any  one  who 
has  not  studied  them  in  the  living  original." 

In  a  letter  to  his  brother,  September  24, 1880, 
Lanier  said :  "  Have  you  read  Cable's  book, '  The 
Grandissimes  '  ?  It  is  a  work  of  art,  and  he  has 
a  fervent  and  rare  soul.  Do  you  know  him?" 
In  his  announcement  of  the  course  on  the  Eng 
lish  Novel  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  he  in 
cluded  this  novel  in  a  list  of  recent  American 
novels  which  he  intended  to  discuss. 

Nor  was  he  contented  with  recognizing  the 
genius  of  men  who  wrote  of  their  own  accord. 
His  letters  to  "  Father "  Tabb  were  especially 


THE  NEW   SOUTH  295 

stimulating.  He  was  the  prime  cause  in  induc 
ing  Richard  Malcolm  Johnston  to  offer  first  to 
the  magazines,  and  then  to  the  publishers,  his 
stories  of  Middle  Georgia.  Johnston  had  pub 
lished  the  "  Dukesborough  Tales  "  in  the  "  South 
ern  Magazine  "  as  early  as  1871,  but  they  had 
made  little  or  no  impression  on  account  of  the 
limited  circulation  of  that  periodical.  In  1877 
"  Mr.  Neelus  Peeler's  Condition  "  was  sent  by 
Lanier  to  Mr.  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  then 
editor  of  "  Scribner's  Monthly."  He  had  the 
rare  pleasure  of  sending  Mr.  Gilder's  letter  of 
acceptance  with  enclosed  check  to  his  friend. 
The  following  letter  shows  how  he  advised  Colo 
nel  Johnston  as  to  one  of  the  stories. 

55  LEXINGTON  STREET,  BALTIMORE,  MD., 
November  6,  1877. 

MY  DEAR  COL.  JOHNSTON,  —  Mrs.  Lanier's 
illness  on  Saturday  devolved  a  great  many  do 
mestic  duties  upon  me,  and  rendered  it  quite  im 
possible  for  me  to  make  the  preparations  neces 
sary  for  my  visit  to  you  on  Sunday.  This  caused 
me  a  great  deal  of  regret ;  a  malign  fate  seems 
to  have  pursued  all  my  recent  efforts  in  your 
direction. 

I  have  attentively  examined  your  "  Dukesbor 
ough  Tale."  I  wish  very  much  that  I  could  read 
it  over  aloud  in  your  presence,  so  that  I  might 


296  SIDNEY   LANIER 

call  your  attention  to  many  verbal  lapses  which 
I  find  and  which,  I  am  sure,  will  hinder  its  way 
with  the  magazine  editors.  I  will  try  to  see  you 
in  a  day  or  two,  and  do  this.  Again,  ascending 
from  merely  verbal  criticism  to  considerations  of 
general  treatment,  I  find  that  the  action  of  the 
story  does  not  move  quite  fast  enough  during  the 
first  twenty-five  pages,  and  the  last  ten,  to  suit 
the  impatience  of  the  modern  magazine  man. 

Aside  from  these  two  points,  —  and  they  can 
both  be  easily  remedied,  —  the  story  strikes  me 
as  exquisitely  funny,  and  your  reproduction  of 
the  modes  of  thought  and  of  speech  among  the 
rural  Georgians  is  really  wonderful.  The  peculiar 
turns  and  odd  angles,  described  by  the  minds  of 
these  people  in  the  course  of  ratiocination  (Good 
Heavens,  what  would  Sammy  Wiggins  think  of 
such  a  sentence  as  this  !),  are  presented  here  with 
a  delicacy  of  art  that  gives  me  a  great  deal  of  en 
joyment.  The  whole  picture  of  old-time  Georgia 
is  admirable,  and  I  find  myself  regretting  that  its 
full  merit  can  be  appreciated  only  by  that  limited 
number  who,  from  personal  experience,  can  com 
pare  it  with  the  original. 

Purely  with  a  view  to  conciliating  the  editor 
of  the  magazine,  I  strongly  advise  you  to  hasten 
the  movement  of  the  beginning  and  of  the  cata 
strophe  :  that  is,  from  about  p.  1  to  p.  34,  and 
from  p.  57  to  p.  67.  The  middle,  i.  e.,  from  p.  34 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  297 

top.  57,  should  not  be  touched :  it  is  good  enough 
for  me. 

I  would  not  dare  to  make  these  suggestions 
if  I  thought  that  you  would  regard  them  other 
wise  than  as  pure  evidences  of  my  interest  in  the 
success  of  the  story. 

Your  friend, 

SIDNEY  L. 

But  Lanier's  service  to  the  South  and  to 
Southern  literature  is  greater  than  the  recogni 
tion  of  any  one  writer  or  the  encouragement 
given  to  any  one  of  them.  All  of  them  were 
cheered  in  their  work  by  his  heroic  life ;  not 
one  but  looked  to  him  as  a  leader.  His  life, 
which  in  a  large  sense  belongs  to  the  nation,  be 
longs  in  a  peculiar  sense  to  the  South.  He  was 
Southern  by  birth,  temperament,  and  experience. 
He  knew  the  South,  —  he  had  traveled  from  San 
Antonio  to  Jacksonville,  and  from  Baltimore  to 
Mobile  Bay.  Its  scenery  was  the  background  of 
his  poetry,  —  the  marsh,  the  mountain,  the  sea 
shore,  the  forest,  the  birds  and  flowers  of  the 
South  stirred  his  imagination.  He  knew  person 
ally  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Confederacy,  as 
well  as  the  men  who  made  possible  the  New 
South.  He  was  heir  to  all  the  life  of  the  past. 
His  chivalry,  his  fine  grace  of  manners,  his  gen 
erosity  and  his  enthusiasm  were  all  Southern 


298  SIDNEY   LANIER 

traits ;  and  the  work  that  he  has  left  is  in  a 
peculiar  sense  the  product  of  a  genius  influenced 
by  that  civilization.  All  these  things  render  him 
singularly  precious  to  Southerners  of  the  present 
generation. 

He  had  qualities  of  mind  and  ideals  of  life, 
however,  which  have  been  too  rare  in  his  native 
section.  He  was  a  severe  critic  of  some  phases 
of  its  life.  From  this  standpoint  his  career  and 
his  personality  should  never  lose  their  influence 
in  the  South.  There  had  been  men  and  women 
who  had  loved  music ;  but  Lanier  was  the  first 
Southerner  to  appreciate  adequately  its  signifi 
cance  in  the  modern  world,  and  to  feel  the  in 
spiration  of  the  most  recent  composers.  There 
had  been  some  fine  things  done  in  literature; 
but  he  was  the  first  to  realize  the  transcendent 
dignity  and  worth  of  the  poet  and  his  work. 
Literature  had  been  a  pastime,  a  source  of  re 
creation  for  men  ;  to  him  the  study  of  it  was  a 
passion,  and  the  creation  of  it  the  highest  voca 
tion  of  man.  Compared  with  other  writers  of  the 
New  South,  Lanier  was  a  man  of  broader  culture 
and  of  finer  scholarship.  He  did  not  have  the 
power  to  create  character  as  some  of  the  writers 
of  fiction,  but  he  was  a  far  better  representative 
of  the  man  of  letters.  The  key  to  his  intellectual 
life  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  read  Words 
worth  and  Keats  rather  than  Scott,  George  Eliot 


THE   NEW   SOUTH  299 

rather  than  Thackeray,  German  literature  as 
well  as  French.  He  was  national  rather  than 
provincial,  open-minded  not  prejudiced,  modern 
and  not  mediaeval.  His  characteristics  —  to  be 
still  further  noted  in  the  succeeding  chapter  — 
are  all  in  direct  contrast  with  those  of  the  con 
servative  Southerner.  There  have  been  other 
Southerners  —  far  more  than  some  men  have 
thought  —  who  have  had  his  spirit,  and  have 
worked  with  heroism  towards  the  accomplish 
ment  of  enduring  results.  There  have  been  none, 
however,  who  have  wrought  out  in  their  lives 
and  expressed  in  their  writings  higher  ideals. 
He  therefore  makes  his  appeal  to  every  man  who 
is  to-day  working  for  the  betterment  of  industrial, 
educational,  and  literary  conditions  in  the  South. 
There  will  never  be  a  time  when  such  men  will 
not  look  to  him  as  the  man  of  letters  who,  after 
the  war,  struck  out  along  lines  which  meant  most 
in  the  intellectual  awakening  of  this  section.  He 
was  a  pioneer  worker  in  building  up  what  he 
liked  to  speak  of  as  the  New  South :  — 

The  South  whose  gaze  is  cast 

No  more  upon  the  past, 

But  whose  bright  eyes  the  skies  of  promise  sweep, 
Whose  feet  in  paths  of  progress  swiftly  leap ; 
And  whose  fresh  thoughts,  like  cheerful  rivers,  run 
Through  odorous  ways  to  meet  the  morning  sun ! 


CHAPTER  XI 

CHARACTERISTICS    AND    IDEAS 

PERHAPS  the  best  single  description  of  Lamer  is 
that  by  his  friend  H.  Clay  Wysham  :  "  His  eye, 
of  bluish  gray,  was  more  spiritual  than  dreamy 
—  except  when  he  was  suddenly  aroused,  and 
then  it  assumed  a  hawk-like  fierceness.  The  trans 
parent  delicacy  of  his  skin  and  complexion  pleased 
the  eye,  and  his  fine-textured  hair,  which  was  soft 
and  almost  straight  and  of  a  light-brown  color, 
was  combed  behind  the  ear  in  Southern  style. 
His  long  beard,  which  was  wavy  and  pointed,  had 
even  at  an  early  age  begun  to  show  signs  of  turn 
ing  gray.  His  nose  was  aquiline,  his  bearing  was 
distinguished,  and  his  manners  were  stamped  with 
a  high  breeding  that  befitted  the  '  Cavalier ' 
lineage.  His  hands  were  delicate  and  white, 
by  no  means  thin,  and  the  fingers  tapering.  His 
gestures  were  not  many,  but  swift,  graceful,  and 
expressive  ;  the  tone  of  his  voice  was  low ;  his  fig 
ure  was  willowy  and  lithe ;  and  in  stature  he 
seemed  tall,  but  in  reality  he  was  a  little  below  six 
feet  —  withal  there  was  a  native  knightly  grace 
which  marked  his  every  movement."  l  If  to  this 

]  Independent,  November  18,  1897. 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS    301 

be  added  the  words  of  Dr.  Gilman  as  to  the  im 
pression  he  produced  on  people,  the  picture  may 
be  complete :  "  The  appearance  of  Lanier  was 
striking.  There  was  nothing  eccentric  or  odd 
about  him,  but  his  words,  manners,  ways  of  speech, 
were  distinguished.  I  have  heard  a  lady  say  that 
if  he  took  his  place  in  a  crowded  horse-car,  an 
exhilarating  atmosphere  seemed  to  be  introduced 
by  his  breezy  ways."  l 

He  was  mindful  of  the  conventionalities  of  life. 
He  had  nothing  of  the  Bohemian  in  his  looks, 
his  manners,  or  his  temperament.  Poor  though 
he  was,  he  was  scrupulous  with  regard  to  dress. 
He  was  a  hard  worker,  but  when  his  health  per 
mitted,  he  was  thoroughly  mindful  of  duties  that 
devolved  upon  him  as  a  member  of  society.  He 
wrote  to  Charlotte  Cushman  :  "  For  I  am  surely 
going  to  find  you,  at  one  place  or  t'  other,  —  pro 
vided  heaven  shall  send  me  so  much  fortune  in  the 
selling  of  a  poem  or  two  as  will  make  the  price  of 
a  new  dress  coat.  Alas,  with  what  unspeakable 
tender  care  I  would  have  brushed  this  present 
garment  of  mine  in  days  gone  by,  if  I  had  dreamed 
that  the  time  would  come  when  so  great  a  thing 
as  a  visit  to  you  might  hang  upon  the  little  length 
of  its  nap  !  Behold,  it  is  not  only  in  man's  breast 
that  pathos  lies,  and  the  very  coat  lapel  that  cov 
ers  it  may  be  a  tragedy."  Professor  Gilder  sleeve 
1  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  April,  1905. 


302  SIDNEY   LANIER 

gives  a  characteristic  incident :  "  I  remember  he 
came  to  a  dinner  given  in  his  honor,  fresh  from 
a  lecture  at  the  Peabody,  in  a  morning  suit  and 
with  chalk  on  his  fingers.  Came  thus,  not  because 
he  was  unmindful  of  conventionalities.  He  was 
as  mindful  of  them  as  Browning,  —  came  thus 
because  he  had  to  come  thus.  There  was  no  time 
to  dress.  The  poor  chalk-fingered  poet  was  mis 
erable  the  whole  evening,  hardly  roused  himself 
when  the  talk  fell  on  Blake,  and  when  we  took 
a  walk  together  the  next  day  he  made  his  moan 
to  me  about  it.  A  seraph  with  chalk  on  his  fin 
gers.  Somehow,  that  little  incident  seems  to  me 
an  epitome  of  his  life,  though  I  have  mentioned 
it  only  to  show  how  busy  he  was."  l 

He  was  a  welcome  guest  in  many  homes.  "  He 
had  the  most  gentle,  refined,  sweet,  lovely  man 
ners,  I  think  I  may  say,  of  any  man  I  ever  met," 
says  Charles  Heber  Clarke.  A  letter  from  the 
daughter  of  the  late  John  Foster  Kirk,  former 
editor  of  "  Lippincott's  Magazine,"  gives  an  im 
pression  of  Lanier  in  the  homes  of  his  friends  :  — 

"  My  first  sight  of  Lanier  was  when  he  came 
into  the  room  with  my  father  at  dusk  one  even 
ing  (they  had  been  walking  through  the  Wissa- 
hickon  woods  and  came  back  to  tea),  and  his 
presence  seemed  something  beautiful  in  the  room, 
even  more  from  his  manner  than  from  his  appear- 

1  Letter  to  the  author. 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND  IDEAS    303 

ance,  gracious  and  fine  as  that  was.  He  always 
seemed  to  me  to  stand  for  chivalry  as  well  as 
poetry,  and  his  goodness  was  something  you  felt 
at  once  and  never  forgot.  He  was  at  our  house  one 
day  with  his  flute.  He  and  my  father  were  going 
to  Mr.  Robert  P.  Morton's,  in  Germantown,  to 
play  together.  We  happened  to  speak  of  the  fact 
that  my  sister,  then  a  little  girl,  though  abso 
lutely  without  ear  for  music,  had  a  curious  de 
light  in  listening  to  it.  Mr.  Lanier  said  he  would 
like  to  play  to  her ;  we  called  her  in  from  the 
yard  where  she  was  playing,  and  he  played  some 
of  his  own  music,  explaining  to  her  first  what  he 
thought  of  when  he  wrote  it,  describing  to  her 
the  brook  in  its  course,  and  other  things  in  na 
ture.  He  could  easily  have  found  a  more  appre 
ciative  listener,  but  not  a  happier  one. 

"  I  remember  his  eagerness  about  all  forms  of 
knowledge  and  expression.  We  went  with  him 
to  the  Centennial,  where  we  were  full  of  excite 
ment  about  pictures,  though  none  of  us  knew 
much  about  them.  I  remember  the  pleasure 
Mr.  Lanier  had  in  the  sense  of  color  and  splen 
dor  given  him  by  the  big  Hans  Makart  (4  Cate- 
rina  Cornaro')  and  discussions  of  that  and  the 
English  and  Spanish  pictures.  Intellectually  he 
seemed  to  me  not  so  much  to  have  arrived  as  to 
be  on  the  way,  —  with  a  beautiful  fervor  and 
eagerness  about  things,  as  if  he  had  never  had 


304  SIDNEY   LANIER 

all  that  he  longed  for  in  books  and  study  and 
thought."  l 

Lanier  had  remarkable  power  for  making  and 
keeping  friends.  This  has  already  been  seen  in 
his  relations  to  the  Peacocks,  Charlotte  Cushman, 
and  Bayard  Taylor.  In  the  large  circle  of  friends 
among  whom  he  moved  in  Baltimore  may  be  seen 
further  attestation  of  this  point.  People  did  not 
pity  him,  nor  did  they  dole  out  charity  to  him. 
They  did  not  reverence  him  merely  because  he 
was  a  poet,  a  teacher,  or  a  musician  of  note ;  they 
were  drawn  to  him  by  strong  personal  ties  —  he 
had  magnetism.  The  little  informal  notes  that 
he  wrote  to  them,  or  the  longer  letters  he  wrote 
in  absence,  or  the  conversations  that  he  had  with 
them,  sometimes  till  far  into  the  night,  are  cher 
ished  as  among  the  most  sacred  memories  of  their 
lives.  He  knew  how  to  endure  human  weakness 
and  to  inspire  human  efforts.  One  of  the  friends 
who  knew  him  best  has  recorded  in  a  tender 
poem  what  Lanier  meant  to  those  who  were  in 
timate  with  him :  — 

That  love  of  man  for  man, 

That  joyed  in  all  sweet  possibilities  :  that  faith 
Which  hallowed  love  and  life.  .  .  . 
So  he,  Heaven-taught  in  his  large-heartedness, 
Smiled  with  his  spirit's  eyes  athwart  the  veil 
That  human  loves  too  oft  keep  closely  drawn.  .  .  . 
So  hearts  leaped  up  to  breathe  his  freer  atmosphere, 

1  Letter  to  the  author. 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     305 

And  eyes  smiled  truer  for  his  radiance  clear, 
And  souls  grew  loftier  where  his  teachings  fell, 
And  all  gave  love.  .  .  . 

Aye,  the  patience  and  the  smile 
Which  glossed  his  pain;  the  courtesy; 
The  sweet  quaint  thoughts  which  gave  his  poems  birth."1 

She  speaks,  too,  of  "  his  winning  tenderness 
with  souls  perplexed  ;  "  "  his  eagerness  for  lofty 
converse ;  "  "  his  oneness  with  all  master-minds  ;  " 
"  his  thirst  for  lore ;  "  "  his  gratitude  for  that  the 
Lord  had  made  the  earth  so  good !  " 

In  the  house  of  this  same  friend,  Mme.  Blanc 
(Th.  Bentzon)  first  realized  the  dead  poet's  per 
sonality  ;  she  there  caught  something  of  the  after 
glow  of  his  presence  :  — 

"  The  morning  that  I  spent  with  Mrs.  Turn- 
bull  was  almost  as  interesting  as  an  interview  with 
Sidney  Lanier  himself  would  have  been,  so  fully 
does  his  memory  live  in  that  most  aesthetic  in 
terior,  where  poetry  and  music  are  held  in  per 
petual  honor,  and  where  domestic  life  has  all  the 
beauty  of  a  work  of  art.  The  hero  of  Mrs.  Turn- 
bull's  novel,  'A  Catholic  Man,'  is  none  other 
than  Sidney  Lanier,  and  that  scrupulously  faith 
ful  presentment  of  a  '  universal  man '  was  of 
the  greatest  assistance  to  me. 

"  The  beautiful  mansion  on  Park  Avenue 
has  almost  the  character  of  a  temple,  where 

1  Poem  by  Mrs.  Lawrence  Turnbull,  read  at  the  presentation 
of  the  Lanier  bust  to  Johns  Hopkins  University. 


306  SIDNEY   LANIER 

nothing  profane  or  vulgar  is  allowed  admission. 
Passing  through  the  reception  rooms,  I  was  in 
troduced  into  a  private  parlor  out  of  which 
opened  a  music-room,  from  whose  threshold  I 
recognized  the  man  whom  I  had  come  to  seek,  — 
the  poet  himself,  as  he  was  represented  in  his 
latest  years,  by  the  German  sculptor,  Ephraim 
Keyser.  .  .  .  By  way  of  contrast,  Mrs.  Turnbull 
exhibits  a  glorified  Lanier,  crowned  with  his 
ultimate  immortality.  He  appears  in  a  symbolic 
picture,  ordered  by  this  American  art  patroness, 
from  the  Italian  painter  Gatti,  where  are  grouped 
all  the  great  geniuses  of  the  past,  present,  and 
future,  —  the  latter  emerging  vaguely  from  the 
mists  of  the  distance,  and  including  a  large 
number  of  women.  This  innumerable  multitude 
of  the  elite  of  all  ages  encircles  a  mountain  which 
is  dominated  by  Jesus  Christ;  and  from  this 
figure  of  the  Christ  emanates  the  light  which 
Mrs.  Turnbull  has  caused  to  be  shed  upon  the 
figures  of  the  picture,  with  more  or  less  brilliancy 
according  to  her  own  preferences.  Designating 
a  tall,  draped  figure  who  walks  in  the  front  rank 
of  the  poets,  the  lady  said  to  me :  4  This  is 
Sidney  Lanier ; '  and  when  I,  despite  my  admira 
tion  for  the  poet  of  the  marshes,  ventured  to  offer 
a  few  modest  suggestions,  she  went  on  to  develop 
the  thesis,  that  what  exalts  a  man  is  less  what 
he  has  done  than  what  he  has  aspired  to  do." 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     307 

"  Mrs.  Turnbull  had  too  much  tact  to  multiply 
her  personal  anecdotes  of  Sidney  Lanier,  but  she 
pictured  him  to  me  as  he  loved  to  sit  by  the  fire 
side,  where  he  had  always  his  own  special  place ; 
coming,  of  an  evening,  unannounced,  into  the 
room  where  we  then  were,  rising  like  a  phantom 
beside  her  husband  and  herself,  in  the  hour  be 
tween  daylight  and  dark,  and  pouring  forth  those 
profound,  unexpected,  and  delightful  things 
which  seem  to  belong  to  him  alone,  which  char 
acterize  his  correspondence  also,  and  all  his 
literary  remains."  l 

The  quality  of  affection  in  Lanier  reached  its 
climax  in  his  home  life.  There  he  was  seen  and 
known  at  his  best.  An  early  aspiration  of  his 
was  "  to  show  that  the  artist-life  is  not  necessa 
rily  a  Bohemian  life,  but  that  it  may  coincide 
with  and  be  the  home-life."  Such  poems  as 
"  Baby  Charley  "  and  "  Hard  Times  in  Elfland," 
and  the  story  of  "  Bob  "  reveal  the  playful  and 
affectionate  father,  while  "  My  Springs,"  "  In 
Absence,"  "  Laus  Mariae  "  and  many  published 
and  unpublished  letters  are  but  variations  of  the 
oft-recurring  theme :  — 

When  life  's  all  love,  't  is  life  :  aught  else,  't  is  naught. 

1  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  1898.   Translated  for  LitteWs  Liv 
ing  Age,  May  14  and  May  21,  1898. 


308  SIDNEY   LANIER 

A  letter  written  to  his  wife  will  serve  to  give  the 
spirit  which  prevailed  in  the  home :  — 

January  1, 1875. 

A  thousand-fold  Happy  New  Year  to  thee,  and 
I  would  that  thy  whole  year  may  be  as  full  of 
sweetness  as  my  heart  is  full  of  thee. 

All  day  I  dwell  with  my  dear  ones  there  with 
thee.  I  do  so  long  for  one  hearty  rornp  with  my 
boys  again !  Kiss  them  most  fervently  for  me, 
and  say  over  their  heads  my  New  Year's  prayer, 
that  whether  God  may  color  their  lives  bright  or 
black,  they  may  continually  grow  in  a  large  and 
hearty  manhood,  compounded  of  strength  and 
love. 

Let  us  try  and  teach  them,  dear  wife,  that  it 
is  only  the  smaU  soul  that  ever  cherishes  bitter 
ness  ;  for  the  climate  of  a  large  and  loving  heart 
is  too  warm  for  that  frigid  plant.  Let  us  lead 
them  to  love  everything  in  the  world,  above  the 
world,  and  under  the  world  adequately ;  that  is 
the  sum  and  substance  of  a  perfect  life.  And  so 
God's  divine  rest  be  upon  every  head  under  the 
roof  that  covers  thine  this  night,  prayeth  thy 

HUSBAND. 

Sweetness  of  disposition,  depth  of  emotion, 
and  absolute  purity  of  life  are  frequently  re 
garded  as  feminine  traits.  These  Lanier  had, 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     309 

but  they  were  fused  with  the  qualities  of  a  virile 
and  healthy  manhood.  He  attracted  strong  and 
intellectual  men  as  well  as  refined  and  cultivated 
women.  The  bravery  manifested  during  the  Civil 
War  and  the  fortitude  that  he  displayed  after  the 
war  became  elemental  qualities  in  his  character. 
His  admiration  of  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  age  of 
chivalry  arose  from  a  certain  inherent  knightli- 
ness  in  his  own  character.  He  had  the  combina 
tion  of  tenderness  and  strength  to  which  he  called 
attention  in  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  His  admiration 
for  old  English  poetry  was  due  to  the  "  ruddiness 
in  its  cheek  and  the  red  corpuscles  in  its  veins." 
QDhere  is  in  his  later  prose  the  "  send  and  drive  " 
of  a  vigorous  soul.  )lt  was  this  elemental  man 
hood  that  attracted  him  to  Whitman,  despite  all 
his  protests  against  the  latter' s  carelessness  of 
form  and  lack  of  grace.  "  Reading  him,"  he  says, 
"is  like  getting  the  salt  sea  spray  into  one's 
face." 

He  had  some  of  the  Southerner's  resistance 
to  anything  like  insult.  A  story  is  frequently 
told  in  Baltimore  of  the  way  in  which  Lanier  re 
sented  the  conductor's  words  to  a  young  lady  at 

a  rehearsal  of  the  Peabody  Orchestra.    " , 

irritated  in  his  undisciplined  musician's  nerves, 
vented  that  irritation  in  a  rude  outburst  towards 
a  timid  young  woman  who  was  playing  the  piano, 
either  with  orchestra  or  voice  or  in  solo.  In  an 


310  SIDNEY   LANIER 

instant  Lanier's  tall,  straight  figure  shot  up  from 
his  seat  and,  taking  the  chair  he  occupied  in  his 

hand,  he  said  :  '  Mr. ,  you  must  retract  every 

word  you  have  uttered  and  apologize  to  that 
young  lady  before  you  beat  another  bar.'  There 
was  no  mistake  of  his  resoluteness  and  determi 
nation,  and  Mr. retracted  and  apologized ; 

the  orchestra  went  on  only  after  the  same  had 
been  done." 

Another  element  that  contributed  to  the  ad 
mirable  symmetry  of  Lanier's  character  was  that 
of  humor.  One  would  misjudge  him  entirely  if 
he  took  into  account  only  the  highly  wrought  let 
ters  on  music  or  the  great  majority  of  his  poems. 
From  one  standpoint  he  seems  a  burning  flame. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  his  enthusiasm  for 
anything  that  was  fine  and  the  ecstatic  rapture 
into  which  he  passed  under  the  spell  of  great  mu 
sic  or  nature  or  poetry,  were  balanced  by  humor 
that  was  playful  and  delicate  and  at  times  irre 
sistible.  His  pranks  as  a  college  boy  and  as  a 
soldier  have  already  been  noted.  His  enjoyment 
of  the  negro  and  of  the  Georgia  "  Cracker  "  may 
be  seen  in  his  dialect  poems,  "  A  Florida  Ghost," 
"  Uncle  Jim's  Baptist  Kevival  Hymn,"  "  Jones's 
Private  Argument,"  and  others.  With  his  chil 
dren  his  spirit  of  fun-making  knew  no  bounds. 
The  point  may  still  further  be  seen  by  any  one 
who  reads  his  lectures,  and  especially  those  letters 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     311 

to  his  friends  in  which  he  constantly  indulged  in 
playful  conceits  and  fine  humor.  He  even  laughed 
at  his  poverty,  and  got  off  many  a  jest  in  the  very 
face  of  death.  In  this  respect,  as  in  others,  he 
was  strikingly  like  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

Lanier's  moderiiness  of  mind  has  already  been 
illustrated  in  his  attitude  to  music  and  to  scholar 
ship.  Asked  one  time  what  age  he  preferred,  he 
said,  "  the  Present,'.'  and  the  answer  was  typical 
of  his  whole  attitude  to  things.  He  did  not  rail  at 
his  age.  He  was  a  close  student  of  current  events. 
He  spoke  strongly  sometimes,  as  did  Wordsworth 
and  Ruskin,  against  the  materialism  of  the  nine 
teenth  century ;  he  delivered  his  protest  against 
it  in  many  of  his  poems ;  and  yet  he  never  lost  his 
faith  that  all  material  progress  would  eventually 
contribute  to  the  moral  and  artistic  needs  of  man. 
"  It  is  often  asserted,"  he  said,  "  that  ours  is  a 
materialistic  age,  and  that  romance  is  dead ;  but 
this  is  marvelously  untrue,  and  it  may  be  counter- 
asserted  with  perfect  confidence  that  there  was 
never  an  age  of  the  world  when  art  was  enthroned 
by  so  many  hearthstones  and  intimate  in  so  many 
common  houses  as  now."  He  accepted  the  facts 
of  his  time,  and  sought  to  make  them  subservient 
to  the  healthy  idealism  that  reigned  in  his  soul. 

Furthermore,  he  was  an  absolutely  open- 
minded  man,  eager  for  any  new  world  which  he 
might  enter.  He  had  nothing  of  the  provincialism 


312  SIDNEY   LANIER 

of  the  parish  or  of  the  period.  One  of  the  most 
striking  illustrations  of  this  quality  of  mind  is 
seen  in  comparing  him  with  Poe,  who  was  irri 
table  and  prejudiced.  Poe  shared  the  ante-bellum 
Southerner's  prejudice  against  New  England  and 
all  her  writers.  There  is  nowhere  in  Lanier  any 
indication  that  such  a  spirit  found  lodgment  in 
his  mind.  Emerson  —  the  transcendentalist  — 
was  one  of  his  "  wise  masters." 

Another  striking  illustration  of  his  breadth  of 
view  was  his  profound  reverence  for  science.  That 
he  had  this  so  early  was  due,  as  has  been  already 
seen,  to  the  influence  of  Professor  Woodrow  at 
college.  In  "  Tiger  Lilies  "  he  said,  in  comment 
ing  on  Macaulay's  idea  of  poetry  declining  as 
science  grows  :  "  How  long  a  time  intervened 
between  Humboldt  and  Goethe;  how  long  be 
tween  Agassiz  and  Tennyson  ?  One  can  scarcely 
tell  whether  Humboldt  and  Agassiz  were  not  as 
good  poets  as  Goethe  and  Tennyson  were  cer 
tainly  good  philosophers."  "  The  astonishing 
effect  of  the  stimulus  which  has  been  given  to 
investigation  into  material  nature  by  the  rise  of 
geology  and  the  prosperity  of  chemistry  "  is  seen 
in  the  literary  development  of  the  day.  "  To 
day's  science  bears  not  only  fruit,  but  flowers  also ! 
Poems,  as  well  as  steam  engines,  crown  its  growth 
in  these  times."  The  passage  closes  with  these 
significant  words :  "  Poetry  will  never  fail,  nor 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     313 

science,  nor  the  poetry  of  science."  This  view 
remained  with  him  till  the  end  of  his  life.  He 
hailed  the  scientific  progress  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  one  of  its  greatest  achievements,  and 
constantly  related  it  to  the  rise  of  landscape 
painting,  modern  nature  poetry,  modern  music, 
and  the  English  novel.  His  attitude  thereto 
is  made  all  the  more  notable  by  the  fact  that 
throughout  the  country,  and  especially  in  the 
South,  there  prevailed  the  utmost  distrust  of 
scientific  investigations  and  hypotheses.  Dur 
ing  the  seventies  the  criticism  of  the  invitation 
extended  to  Huxley  to  deliver  the  principal  ad 
dress  at  the  opening  of  Johns  Hopkins  Univer 
sity,  and  the  controversy  arising  out  of  President 
White's  enunciation  of  the  principles  that  would 
dominate  the  newly  created  Cornell  University, 
all  tended  to  make  the  controversy  between 
science  and  religion  especially  acute.  American 
poets,  notably  Poe  and  Lowell,  had  expressed 
their  distrust  of  modern  scientific  methods  and 
conclusions.  But  Lanier  saw  no  danger  either 
to  religion  or  to  poetry  in  science.  He  constantly 
referred  to  Tyndall,  Huxley,  and  Darwin,  in  a 
way  which  suggested  his  familiarity  with  their 
writings.  I  have  seen  a  copy  of  the  "  Origin 
of  Species  "  owned  by  Lanier,  —  the  marks  and 
annotations  indicating  the  most  careful  and 
thoughtful  reading  thereof.  In  his  lectures  on 


314  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  English  Novel,  in  contrasting  ancient  science 
with  modern  science,  he  says  :  "  In  short,  I  find 
that  early  thought  everywhere,  whether  dealing 
with  physical  fact  or  metaphysical  problems,  is 
lacking  in  what  I  may  call  the  intellectual  con 
science,  —  the  conscience  which  makes  Mr.  Dar 
win  spend  long  and  patient  years  in  investigating 
small  facts  before  daring  to  reason  upon  them, 
and  which  makes  him  state  the  facts  adverse  to 
his  theory  with  as  much  care  as  the  facts  which 
make  for  it."  Again  he  refers  to  him  as  "  our 
own  grave  and  patient  Charles  Darwin." 

He  did  not  write  about  science  at  second-hand, 
either,  —  he  studied  it.  Mrs.  Sophie  Bledsoe 
Herrick,  Lowell's  Baltimore  friend,  tells  of  La 
mer^  interest  in  microscopic  work  :  "  Mrs.Lanier 
and  family  were  not  with  him  then,  and  he  was 
busy  writing  some  articles  on  the  science  of  com 
position.  Evening  after  evening  he  would  bring 
the  manuscript  of  these  articles  and  read  them, 
and  talk  them  over. 

"  I  was  at  that  time  intensely  interested  in 
microscopic  work.  It  was  curious  and  interest 
ing  to  see  how  Mr.  Lanier  kindled  to  the  subject, 
so  foreign  to  his  ordinary  literary  interests.  I 
was  too  busy  with  editorial  work  to  go  on  with 
my  microscopic  work  then,  and  it  was  a  great 
pleasure  to  leave  my  instrument  and  books  on  the 
subject  with  him  for  some  months.  He  plunged 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     315 

in  with  all  the  ardor  of  a  naturalist,  not  using  the 
microscope  as  a  mere  toy,  but  doing  good  hard 
work  with  it.  I  think  I  can  detect  in  his  work 
after  this  time,  —  as  well  as  in  his  letters,  — 
many  little  touches  which  show  the  influence  this 
study  of  nature  had  upon  his  mind."  * 

So  he  had  little  patience  with  "  those  timor 
ous  souls  who  believe  that  science,  in  explaining 
everything,  —  as  they  singularly  fancy,  —  will 
destroy  the  possibility  of  poetry,  of  the  novel, 
in  short  of  all  works  of  the  imagination :  the  idea 
seeming  to  be  that  the  imagination  always  re 
quires  the  hall  of  life  to  be  darkened  before  it 
displays  its  magic,  like  the  modern  spiritualistic 
seance-givers  who  can  do  nothing  with  the  rope- 
tying  and  the  guitars  unless  the  lights  are  put 
out."  2  And  again  :  "  Here  are  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  acute  and  patient  men  to-day  who 
are  devoutly  gazing  into  the  great  mysteries  of 
Nature  and  faithfully  reporting  what  they  see. 
These  men  have  not  destroyed  the  fairies:  they 
have  preserved  them  in  more  truthful  and  solid 
shape." 

But  while  he  estimated  at  its  proper  value  the 
development  of  modern  physical  science,  he  saw 
it  in  its  proper  relation  to  music,  poetry,  and 
religion.  "  The  scientific  man,"  he  says  in  his 
"Legend  of  St.  Leonor,"  "  is  merely  the  minister 
1  Letter  to  the  author.  2  The  English  Novel,  p.  28. 


316  SIDNEY   LANIER 

of  poetry.  He  is  cutting  down  the  Western 
Woods  of  Time  ;  presently  poetry  will  come  there 
and  make  a  city  and  gardens.  This  is  always  so. 
The  man  of  affairs  works  for  the  behoof  and  the 
use  of  poetry.  Scientific  facts  have  never  reached 
their  proper  function  until  they  emerge  into  new 
poetic  relations  established  between  man  and 
man,  between  man  and  God,  or  between  man 
and  nature." 

Lanier's  view  of  the  theory  of  evolution  is 
interesting.  "  I  have  been  studying  science,  bi 
ology,  chemistry,  evolution,  and  all,"  he  writes  to 
J.  F.  Kirk,  June  15,  1880.  "  It  pieces  on,  per 
fectly,  to  those  dreams  which  one  has  when  one 
is  a  boy  and  wanders  alone  by  a  strong  running 
river,  on  a  day  when  the  wind  is  high  but  the 
sky  clear.  These  enormous  modern  generaliza 
tions  fill  me  with  such  dreams  again. 

"  But  it  is  precisely  at  the  beginning  of  that 
phenomenon  which  is  the  underlying  subject 
of  this  poem,  c  Individuality,'  that  the  largest  of 
such  generalizations  must  begin,  and  the  doc 
trine  of  evolution  when  pushed  beyond  this  point 
appears  to  me,  after  the  most  careful  examination 
of  the  evidence,  to  fail.  It  is  pushed  beyond  this 
point  in  its  current  application  to  the  genesis  of 
species,  and  I  think  Mr.  Huxley's  last  sweeping 
declaration  is  clearly  parallel  to  that  of  an  enthu 
siastic  dissecter  who,  forgetting  that  his  obser- 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS    317 

vations  are  upon  dead  bodies,  should  build  a 
physiological  conclusion  upon  purely  anatomical 
facts. 

"For  whatever  can  be  proved  to  have  been 
evolved,  evolution  seems  to  me  a  noble  and  beau 
tiful  and  true  theory.  But  a  careful  search  has 
not  shown  me  a  single  instance  in  which  such 
proof  as  would  stand  the  first  shot  of  a  boy  lawyer 
in  a  moot  court,  has  been  brought  forward  in 
support  of  an  actual  case  of  species  differentia 
tion. 

"  A  cloud  (see  the  poem)  may  be  evolved  ;  but 
not  an  artist ;  and  I  find,  in  looking  over  my 
poem,  that  it  has  made  itself  into  a  passionate  re- 
affirmation  of  the  artist's  autonomy,  threatened 
alike  from  the  direction  of  the  scientific  fanatic 
and  the  pantheistic  devotee." 

With  all  of  Lanier's  development  —  whether 
in  science  and  scholarship,  or  in  music  and  litera 
ture  —  he  retained  a  vital  faith  in  the  Christian 
religion.  He  reacted  against  the  Calvinism  of 
his  youth  to  almost  as  great  a  degree  as  did  some 
of  the  New  England  poets.  He  at  times  felt 
keenly  the  narrowness  and  bigotry  of  the  church 

the  warring  of  the  sects  over  the  unessential 

points.1    In  his  thinking  he  found  no  place  for 

the  rigid  and  severe  creed  which  dominated  his 

youth.    He  gave  up  the  forms,  not  the  spirit,  of 

1  See  especially  the  poem  "  Remonstrance." 


318  SIDNEY   LANIER 

worship.  He  lived  the  abundant  life,  and  all 
of  the  roads  which  he  traveled  led  to  God.  His 
faith  was  as  broad  as  "  the  liberal  marshes  of 
Glynn."  In  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis  he  said  : 

I  am  one  with  all  the  kinsmen  things 
That  e'er  my  Father  fathered. 

Notwithstanding  his  vivid  realization  of  the 
evil  of  dogma  and  of  sect,  he  maintained  through 
out  his  life  a  reverent  faith;  he  could  distin 
guish,  as  Browning  said  Shelley  could  not,  be 
tween  churchdom  and  Christianity.  Not  only  in 
the  " Crystal"  and  «  A  BaUad  of  Trees  and  the 
Master,"  and  in  the  spirit  of  nearly  all  of  his 
poems,  is  this  evident;  but  throughout  his  lec 
tures,  essays,  and  letters  he  never  missed  an  op 
portunity  to  relate  knowledge  to  faith.  "  He  was 
the  most  Christlike  man  I  ever  knew,"  said  one 
of  his  intimate  friends,  and  those  who  have 
looked  upon  his  bust  at  Johns  Hopkins  have 
involuntarily  found  the  resemblance  of  physical 
form.  Certainly  there  has  been  no  tenderer  poem 
written  about  the  Master  than  the  lines  written 
during  Lanier's  last  year :  — 

Into  the  woods  my  Master  went, 

Clean  forspent,  forspent. 

Into  the  woods  my  Master  came, 

Forspent  with  love  and  shame. 

But  the  olives  they  were  not  blind  to  Him, 

The  little  gray  leaves  were  kind  to  Him  : 


CHARACTERISTICS   AND   IDEAS     319 

The  thorn-tree  had  a  mind  to  Him 
When  into  the  woods  He  came. 

Out  of  the  woods  my  Master  went, 

And  He  was  well  content. 

Out  of  the  woods  my  Master  came, 

Content  with  death  and  shame. 

When  Death  and  Shame  would  woo  Him  last, 

From  under  the  trees  they  drew  Him  last : 

'Twas  on  a  tree  they  slew  Him  —  last 

When  out  of  the  woods  He  came. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    LAST   YEAR 

ONE  of  the  pieces  of  advice  that  Lanier  gave  to 
consumptives  who  went  to  Florida  for  their  health 
was,  "  Set  out  to  get  well,  with  the  thorough  as 
surance  that  consumption  is  curable."  He  had 
literally  followed  his  own  advice,  and  had  fought 
death  off  for  seven  years.  By  the  spring  of  1880 
he  had  won  his  fight  over  every  obstacle  that  had 
been  in  his  way.  He  had  a  position  which,  sup 
plemented  by  literary  work,  could  sustain  him 
and  his  family.  By  prodigious  work  he  had  over 
come,  to  a  large  extent,  his  lack  of  training  in 
both  music  and  scholarship.  The  years  1878  and 
1879  were  his  most  productive.  By  the  "  Science 
of  English  Verse  "  and  the  "  Marshes  of  Glynn  " 
he  had  won  the  admiration  of  many  who  had  at 
first  been  doubtful  about  his  ability.  From  an 
obscure  man  of  the  provinces  out  of  touch  with 
artists  or  musicians,  he  had  become  the  idol  of  a 
large  circle  of  friends  and  admirers. 

During  all  these  years  he  had  had  to  fight  the 
disease  which  he  inherited  from  both  sides  of  his 
family  and  which  was  accentuated  by  hardships 


THE   LAST   YEAR  321 

during  the  war  and  the  habits  of  a  bent  student. 
His  flute-playing  had  helped  to  mitigate  the  dis 
ease.  Finally,  however,  in  the  summer  of  1880, 
he  entered  upon  the  last  fight  with  his  old  enemy. 
Lanier  had  laughed  in  the  face  of  death,  and 
each  new  acquisition  in  the  realms  of  music  and 
poetry  had  been  a  challenge  to  the  enemy.  In 
1876  he  almost  succumbed,  but  in  the  mean  time 
three  years  of  hard  work  had  intervened.  What 
he  had  suffered  from  disease,  even  when  he  was 
at  his  best,  may  be  divined  by  one  of  imagina 
tion.  He  once  referred  to  consumptives  as  "  be 
yond  all  measure  the  keenest  sufferers  of  all  the 
stricken  of  this  world,"  and  he  knew  what  he  was 
talking  about.  He  wrote  to  Hayne,  November  19, 
1880  :  "  For  six  months  past  a  ghastly  fever  has 
been  taking  possession  of  me  each  day  at  about 
twelve  M.,  and  holding  my  head  under  the  sur 
face  of  indescribable  distress  for  the  next  twenty 
hours,  subsiding  only  enough  each  morning  to  let 
me  get  on  my  working-harness,  but  never  inter 
mitting.  A  number  of  tests  show  it  not  to  be  the 
4  hectic '  so  well  known  in  consumption  ;  and  to 
this  day  it  has  baffled  all  the  skill  I  could  find 
in  New  York,  in  Philadelphia,  and  here.  I  have 
myself  been  disposed  to  think  it  arose  purely 
from  the  bitterness  of  having  to  spend  my  time 
in  making  academic  lectures  and  boy's  books  — 
pot-boilers  all  —  when  a  thousand  songs  are  sing- 


322  SIDNEY   LANIER 

ing  in  my  heart  that  will  certainly  kill  me  if  I 
do  not  utter  them  soon.  But  I  don't  think  this 
diagnosis  has  found  favor  with  any  practical  phy 
sician  ;  and  meantime  I  work  day  after  day  in 
such  suffering  as  is  piteous  to  see."  1  With  his 
fever  at  104  degrees  he  wrote  "  Sunrise,"  which, 
though  considered  by  many  his  best  poem,  shows 
an  unmistakable  weakness  when  compared  with 
the  "  Marshes  of  Glynn."  There  is  a  letting  down 
of  the  robust  imagination.  He  delivered  his  lec 
tures  on  the  English  Novel  under  circumstances 
too  harrowing  to  describe.  His  audience  did  not 
know  whether  he  could  finish  any  one  of  them. 

And  yet  the  story  of  his  life  shall  not  close 
with  a  pathetic  account  of  those  last  sad  months. 
Even  during  the  last  year  he  maintained  his 
cheerfulness,  his  playfulness,  his  good  humor,  and 
also  his  buoyancy.  In  August,  a  fourth  son,  Rob 
ert  Sampson  Lanier,  was  born  at  West  Chester, 
and  the  father  writes  letters  to  his  friends,  an 
nouncing  his  joy  thereat.  One  is  to  his  old  friend, 
Richard  Malcolm  Johnston. 

WEST  CHESTER,  PA.,  August  28,  1880. 
MY  DEAR  AND  SWEET  RlCHARD, It  has  just 

occurred  to  me  that  you  were  obliged  to  be  as 
sweet  as  you  are,  in  order  to  redeem  your  name  ; 
for  the  other  three  Richards  in  history  were  very 

1  Letters,  p.  244. 


THE   LAST   YEAR  323 

far  from  being  satisfactory  persons,  and  some 
thing  had  to  be  done.  Richard  I,  though  a  man 
of  muscle,  was  but  a  loose  sort  of  a  swashbuckler 
after  all ;  and  Richard  II,  though  handsome  in 
person,  was  "  redeless,"  and  ministered  much 
occasion  to  Wat  Tyler  and  his  gross  following ; 
while  Richard  III,  though  a  wise  man,  allowed 
his  wisdom  to  ferment  into  cunning  and  applied 
the  same  unto  villainy. 

But  now  comes  Richard  IV,  to  wit,  you,  —  and, 
by  means  of  gentle  loveliness  and  a  story  or  two, 
subdues  a  realm  which  I  foresee  will  be  far  more 
intelligent  than  that  of  Richard  I,  far  less  turbu 
lent  than  that  of  Richard  II,  and  far  more  legiti 
mate  than  that  of  Richard  III,  while  it  will  own 
more,  and  more  true  loving  subjects  than  all  of 
those  three  put  together. 

I  suppose  my  thoughts  have  been  carried  into 
these  details  of  nomenclature  by  your  reference 
to  my  own  young  Samson,  who,  I  devoutly  trust 
with  you,  shall  yet  give  many  a  shrewd  buffet 
and  upsetting  to  the  Philistines.  Is  it  not  won 
derful  how  quickly  these  young  fledgelings  im 
press  us  with  a  sense  of  their  individuality?  This 
fellow  is  two  weeks  old  to-day,  and  every  one  of 
us,  from  mother  to  nurse,  appears  to  have  a  per 
fectly  clear  conception  of  his  character.  This 
conception  is  simply  enchanting.  In  fact,  the 
young  man  has  already  made  himself  absolutely 


324  SIDNEY   LANIER 

indispensable  to  us,  and  my  comrade  and  I  won 
der  how  we  ever  got  along  with  only  three  boys. 

I  rejoice  that  the  editor  of  "  Harper's  "  has 
discrimination  enough  to  see  the  quality  of  your 
stories,  and  I  long  to  see  these  two  appear,  so  that 
you  may  quickly  follow  them  with  a  volume. 
When  that  appears,  it  shall  have  a  review  that 
will  draw  three  souls  out  of  one  weaver  —  if  this 
pen  have  not  lost  her  cunning. 

I  'm  sorry  I  can't  send  a  very  satisfactory  an 
swer  to  your  health  inquiries,  as  far  as  regards 
myself.  The  mean,  pusillanimous  fever  which 
took  under-hold  of  me  two  months  ago  is  still 
there,  as  impregnably  fixed  as  a  cockle-burr  in  a 
sheep's  tail.  I  have  tried  idleness,  but  (naturally) 
it  won't  work.  I  do  no  labor  except  works  of 
necessity  —  such  as  kissing  Mary,  who  is  a  more 
ravishing  angel  than  ever  —  and  works  of  mercy 
—  such  as  letting  off  the  world  from  any  more 
of  my  poetry  for  a  while.  But  it 's  all  one  to  my 
master  the  fever.  I  get  up  every  day  and  drag 
around  in  a  pitiful  kind  of  shambling  existence. 
1  fancy  it  has  come  to  be  purely  a  go-as-you-please 
match  between  me  and  the  disease,  to  see  which 
will  wear  out  first,  and  I  think  I  will  manage  to 
take  the  belt,  yet. 

Give  my  love  to  the  chestnut  trees l  and  all 
the  rest  of  your  family. 

1  It  is  said  that  he  wrote  the  Marshes  of  Glynn  under  one 
of  these. 


THE   LAST   YEAR  325 

Your  letter  gave  us  great  delight.  God  bless 
you  for  it,  my  best  and  only  Richard,  as  well  as 
for  all  your  other  benefactions  to 

Your  faithful  friend, 

S.  L. 

A  few  days  before,  he  had  written  a  more  se 
rious  letter  to  his  friend,  Mrs.  Isabelle  Dobbin, 
of  Baltimore.  The  concluding  words  show  his 
realization  of  the  deeper  meaning  of  childhood. 

•x. 

WEST  CHESTER,  August  18,  1880. 

Here  is  come  a  young  man  so  lovely  in  his 
person,  and  so  gentle  and  high-born  in  his  man 
ners,  that  in  the  course  of  some  three  days  he  has 
managed  to  make  himself  as  necessary  to  our 
world  as  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars ;  at  any  rate, 
these  would  seem  quite  obscured  without  him. 
It  just  so  happens  that  he  is  very  vividly  asso 
ciated  with  you  ;  for  among  the  few  treasures  we 
allowed  ourselves  to  bring  away  from  home  is  the 
photograph  you  gave  us,  and  this  stands  in  the 
most  honorable  coign  of  vantage  in  Mary's  room. 

You  '11  be  glad  to  know  that  my  dear  Com 
rade  is  doing  well.  .  .  .  We  have  reason  to  ex 
pect  a  speedy  sight  of  our  dear  invalid  moving 
about  her  accustomed  ways  again.  If  you  could 
see  the  Boy  asleep  by  her  side  !  The  tranquillity 


326  SIDNEY   LANIER 

of  his  slumber,  and  the  shine  of  his  mother's  eyes 
thereover,  seem  to  melt  up  and  mysteriously  ab 
sorb  the  great  debates  of  the  agnostics,  and  of 
science  and  politics,  and  to  dissolve  them  into  the 
pellucid  Faith  long  ago  reaffirmed  by  the  Son  of 
Man.  Looking  upon  the  child,  this  term  seems 
to  acquire  a  new  meaning,  as  if  Christ  were  in 
some  sort  reproduced  in  every  infant. 

In  the  fall  he  was  busy  again  with  his  books 
for  boys,  —  books,  it  may  be  said,  that  had  their 
origin  in  the  stories  he  told  his  own  boys.1  The 
spirit  in  which  he  worked  on  these  "pot-boilers" 
is  seen  in  a  letter  to  his  publisher,  Mr.  Charles 
Scribner :  — 

435  N.  CALVERT  ST.,  BALTIMORE,  MD., 
November  12,  1880. 

MY  DEAR  MK.  SCRIBNER,  —  You  have  cer 
tainly  made  a  beautiful  book  of  the  "  King 
Arthur,"  and  I  heartily  congratulate  you  on 
achieving  what  seems  to  me  a  real  marvel  of 
bookmaking  art.  The  binding  seems  even  richer 
than  that  of  the  "  Froissart ;  "  and  the  type  and 
printing  leave  a  new  impression  of  graciousness 
upon  the  eye  with  each  reading. 

I  suspect  there  are  few  books  in  our  language 

1  Of  these  The  Boy's  Froissart  was  published  in  1878,  The 
Boy's  King  Arthur  in  1880.  The  Boy's  Mabinogion  in  1881,  and 
The  Boy's  Percy  in  1882. 


THE   LAST   YEAR  327 

which  lead  a  reader  —  whether  young  or  old  — 
on  from  one  paragraph  to  another  with  such 
strong  and  yet  quiet  seduction  as  this.  Familiar 
as  I  am  with  it  after  having  digested  the  whole 
work  before  editing  it  and  again  reading  it  in 
proof  —  some  parts  twice  over  —  I  yet  cannot 
open  at  any  page  of  your  volume  without  read 
ing  on  for  a  while  ;  and  I  have  observed  the  same 
effect  with  other  grown  persons  who  have  opened 
the  book  in  my  library  since  your  package  came 
a  couple  of  days  ago.  It  seems  difficult  to  be 
lieve  otherwise  than  that  you  have  only  to  make 
the  book  well  known  in  order  to  secure  it  a  great 
sale,  not  only  for  the  present  year  but'  for  several 
years  to  come.  Perhaps  I  may  be  of  service  in 
reminding  you  —  of  what  the  rush  of  winter  busi 
ness  might  cause  you  to  overlook  —  that  it  would 
seem  wise  to  make  a  much  more  extensive  outlay 
in  the  way  of  special  advertisement,  here,  than  was 
necessary  with  the  "Froissart."  It  is  probably 
quite  safe  to  say  that  a  thousand  persons  are  fa 
miliar  with  at  least  the  name  of  Froissart  to  one 
who  ever  heard  of  Malory;  and  the  facts  (1) 
that  this  book  is  an  English  classic  written  in  the 
fifteenth  century;  (2)  that  it  is  the  very  first  piece 
of  melodious  English  prose  ever  written,  though 
melodious  English  poetry  had  been  common  for 
seven  hundred  years  before, —  a  fact  which  seems 
astonishing  to  those  who  are  not  familiar  with 


328  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  circumstance  that  all  nations  appear  to  have 
produced  good  poetry  a  long  time  before  good 
prose,  usually  a  long  time  before  any  prose;  (3) 
that  it  arrays  a  number  of  the  most  splendid  ideals 
of  energetic  manhood  in  all  literature ;  and  (4) 
that  the  stories  which  it  brings  together  and  ar 
ranges,  for  the  first  time,  have  furnished  themes 
for  the  thought,  the  talk,  the  poems,  the  operas 
of  the  most  civilized  peoples  of  the  earth  during 
more  than  seven  hundred  years,  —  ought  to  be 
diligently  circulated.  I  regretted  exceedingly  that 
I  could  not,  with  appropriateness  to  youthful 
readers,  bring  out  in  the  introduction  the  strange 
melody  of  Malory's  sentences,  by  reducing  their 
movement  to  musical  notation.  No  one  who  has 
not  heard  it  would  believe  the  effect  of  some  of 
his  passages  upon  the  ear  when  read  by  any  one 
who  has  through  sympathetic  study  learned  the 
rhythm  in  which  he  thought  his  phrases.  .  .  . 
Sincerely  yours, 

SIDNEY  LANIER, 

In  January,  he  began  his  lectures  at  Johns 
Hopkins.  Who  would  have  thought  that  a  dying 
man  could  give  expression  to  such  vigorous  ideas 
in  such  rhythmic  and  virile  prose  as  are  some 
of  the  passages  in  the  "  English  Novel  "?  There 
is  not  the  intellectual  strength  in  this  book 
that  there  is  in  the  "  Science  of  English  Verse." 


THE   LAST   YEAR  329 

There  is  more  of  a  tendency  to  go  off  in  digres 
sions,  "to  talk  away  across  country,"  and  the 
whole  lacks  in  unity  and  in  scientific  precision. 
But  there  are  passages  in  it  that  men  will  not 
willingly  let  die.  His  discussion  of  the  growth  of 
personality,  of  the  relations  of  Science,  Art,  Re 
ligion,  and  Life,  of  Walt  Whitman  and  Zola,  and 
above  all,  of  George  Eliot,  are  worthy  of  Lanier 
at  his  best.  These  passages  and  the  still  more 
important  one  on  the  relation  of  art  to  morals 
are  too  well  known  to  be  quoted ;  they  will  be 
considered  in  another  chapter  dealing  with  La- 
nier's  work  as  critic.  They  are  mentioned  here 
only  to  show  the  range  of  Lanier's  interest  and 
the  alertness  of  his  mind  when  his  body  was  fast 
failing. 

Frances  E.  Willard  heard  these  lectures,  and 
her  words  descriptive  of  them  indicate  that  even 
in  those  days  of  intense  suffering  Lanier  impressed 
her  favorably.  "  It  was  refreshing,"  she  says,  "  to 
listen  to  a  professor  of  literature  who  was  some 
thing  more  than  a  raconteur  and  something  dif 
ferent  from  a  bibliophile,  who  had,  indeed,  risen 
to  the  level  of  generalization  and  employed  the 
method  of  a  philosopher.  .  .  .  [His]  face  [was] 
very  pale  and  delicate,  with  finely  chiseled  fea 
tures,  dark,  clustering  hair,  parted  in  the  middle, 
and  beard  after  the  manner  of  the  Italian  school 
of  art.  .  .  .  He  sits  not  very  reposefully  in  his 


330  SIDNEY   LANIER 

professorial  armchair,  and  reads  from  dainty  slips 
of  MS.  in  a  clear,  penetrating  voice  full  of  sub 
tlest  comprehension,  but  painfully  and  often  in 
terrupted  by  a  cough.  ...  As  we  met  for  a 
moment,  when  the  lecture  was  over,  he  spoke 
kindly  of  my  work,  evincing  that  sympathy  of 
the  scholar  with  the  work  of  progressive  philan 
thropy.  i  We  are  all  striving  for  one  end,'  said 
Lanier,  with  genial,  hopeful  smile,  '  and  that  is 
to  develop  and  ennoble  the  humanity  of  which  we 
form  a  part.'  " 1 

Just  after  finishing  his  lectures,  which  were 
reduced  from  twenty  to  twelve  out  of  considera 
tion  for  his  health,  Lanier  went  to  New  York  to 
consult  his  publishers  about  future  work.  The  im 
pression  made  by  him  on  one  of  his  old  students 
is  seen  in  this  passage :  "  One  day  I  had  a  star 
tling  letter  from  Mrs.  Lanier,  saying  that  he  was 
coming  to  New  York  on  business,  though  he  was 
in  no  condition  for  such  an  effort,  and  begging 
me,  as  one  whom  he  loved,  to  meet  him  and  to 
watch  over  him  as  best  I  could.  I  found  him  at 
the  St.  Denis,  and  we  had  dinner  together.  I  now 
know  how  completely  he  deceived  me  as  to  his 
condition.  With  the  intensity  and  exaltation 
often  characteristic  of  the  consumptive,  he  led 
me  to  think  that  he  was  only  slightly  ailing,  was 
gay  and  versatile  as  ever,  insisted  on  going  some- 

1  Independent,  Sept.  1,  1881. 


THE   LAST   YEAR  331 

where  for  the  evening  c  to  hear  some  music,'  and 
absolutely  demanded  to  exercise  through  the 
evening  the  rights  of  host  in  a  way  that  baffled 
my  inexperience  completely.  Only  just  as  I  left 
him  did  he  let  fall  a  single  remark  that  I  later 
saw  showed  how  severe  and  unfortunate,  prob 
ably,  was  the  strain  of  it  all." 

Brave  as  he  was,  however,  and  eager  to  keep 
at  his  work,  he  finally  submitted  to  the  inevita 
ble,  and  in  May  started  with  his  brother  to  the 
mountains  of  western  North  Carolina.  His  final 
interview  with  Dr.  Oilman  is  thus  related  by  the 
latter :  — 

"The  last  time  that  I  saw  Lanier  was  in  the 
spring  of  1881,  when  after  a  winter  of  severe 
illness  he  came  to  make  arrangements  for  his 
lectures  in  the  next  winter  and  to  say  good-bye 
for  the  summer.  His  emaciated  form  could 
scarcely  walk  across  the  yard  from  the  carriage 
to  the  door.  '  I  am  going  to  Asheville,  N.  C.,' 
he  said,  '  and  I  am  going  to  write  an  account  of 
that  region  as  a  railroad  guide.  It  seems  as  if 
the  good  Lord  always  took  care  of  me.  Just  as 
the  doctors  had  said  that  I  must  go  to  that 
mountain  region,  the  publishers  gave  me  a 
commission  to  prepare  a  book.'  ;  Good-bye,'  he 
added,  and  I  supported  his  tottering  steps  to  the 
carriage  door,  never  to  see  his  face  again." ] 

1  South  Atlantic  Quarterly,  April,  1905. 


332  SIDNEY   LANIER 

The  last  months  of  Lanier's  career  seem  to  bring 
together  all  the  threads  of  his  life.  He  was  in 
the  mountains  which  had  first  stimulated  his  love 
of  nature  and  were  the  background  of  his  early 
romance.  He  was  lovingly  attended  by  father, 
brother,  and  wife,  and  took  constant  delight  in 
the  little  boy  who  had  come  to  cheer  his  last  days 
of  weariness  and  sickness.  He  named  the  tent 
Camp  Kobin,  after  his  youngest  son,  and  from 
that  camp  sent  his  last  message  to  the  boys  of 
America.  They  are  the  words  of  the  preface 
to  "The  Boy's  Mabinogion,"  or  "Knightly  Le 
gends  of  Wales  :  "  "In  now  leaving  this  beauti 
ful  book  with  my  young  countrymen,  I  find  my 
self  so  sure  of  its  charm  as  to  feel  no  hesitation 
in  taking  authority  to  unite  the  earnest  expres 
sion  of  their  gratitude  with  that  of  my  own  to 
Lady  Charlotte  Guest,  whose  talents  and  schol 
arship  have  made  these  delights  possible ;  and  I 
can  wish  my  young  readers  few  pleasures  of  finer 
quality  than  that  surprised  sense  of  a  whole  new 
world  of  possession  which  came  with  my  first 
reading  of  these  Mabinogion,  and  made  me  re 
member  Keats's 

watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken." 

A  letter  to  President  Gilman  indicates  his  con 
tinued  interest  in  scientific  investigation  :  — 


THE  LAST  YEAR  333 

ASHEVILLE,  N.  C.,  June  5,  1881. 

DEAR  MR.  GILMAN,  —  Can  you  help  me  — 
or  tell  me  how  I  can  help  myself  —  in  the  follow 
ing  matter?  A  few  weeks  from  now  I  wish  to 
study  the  so-called  no-frost  belt  on  the  side  of 
Tryon  Mountain ;  and  in  order  to  test  the  popu 
lar  account  I  propose  to  carry  on  two  simultane 
ous  series  of  meteorological  observations  during 
a  fortnight  or  longer,  —  the  one  conducted  by 
myself  in  the  middle  of  the  belt,  the  other  by  a 
friend  stationed  well  outside  its  limits.  For  this 
purpose  I  need  two  small  self -registering  ther 
mometers,  two  aneroid  thermometers,  and  two 
hygrometers  of  any  make.  It  has  occurred  to 
me  that  since  these  observations  will  be  con 
ducted  during  the  University  recess  I  might  — 
always  provided,  of  course,  that  there  is  any  au 
thority  or  precedent  for  such  action  —  procure 
this  apparatus  from  the  University  collection,  es 
pecially  as  no  instrument  is  included  which  could 
not  easily  be  replaced.  Of  course  I  would  cheer 
fully  deposit  a  sum  sufficient  to  cover  the  value 
of  the  whole  outfit. 

Should  this  arrangement  be  possible,  I  merely 
ask  that  you  turn  this  letter  over  to  Dr.  Hast 
ings,  with  the  request  that  he  will  have  this  ap 
paratus  packed  at  my  expense  and  shipped  by 
express  to  me  at  this  point  immediately. 

Yours  very  sincerely,         SIDNEY  LANIER. 


334  SIDNEY  LANIER 

The  impulse  to  poetry  was  with  him,  too.  He 
jotted  down  or  dictated  to  his  wife  outlines  and 
suggestions  of  poems  which  he  hoped  to  write. 
Of  these  one  has  been  printed :  — 

I  was  the  earliest  bird  awake, 

It  was  a  while  before  dawn,  I  believe, 

But  somehow  I  saw  round  the  world, 

And  the  eastern  mountain  top  did  not  hinder  me. 

And  I  knew  of  the  dawn  by  my  heart,  not  by  mine  eyes. 

One  agrees  with  "  Father  "  Tabb  that  no  utter 
ance  of  the  poet  ever  betrayed  more  of  his  na 
ture,  —  "  feeble  and  dying,  but  still  a  '  bird,' 
awake  to  every  emotion  of  love,  of  beauty,  of 
faith,  of  star-like  hope,  keeping  the  dawn  in  his 
heart  to  sing,  when  the  mountain-tops  hindered 
it  from  his  eyes." 

On  August  4  the  party  started  across  the 
mountains  to  Lynn,  Polk  County,  North  Caro 
lina.  On  the  way  they  stopped  with  a  friend  in 
whose  house  Lanier  gave  one  more  exhibition  of 
his  love  of  music.  "  It  was  in  this  house,"  says 
Miss  Spann,  "  the  meeting-place  of  all  sweet 
nobility  with  nature  and  with  the  human  spirit, 
that  he  uttered  his  last  music  on  earth.  At  the 
close  of  the  day  Lanier  came  in  and  passed  down 
the  long  drawing-room  until  he  reached  a  western 
window.  In  the  distance  were  the  far-reaching 
Alleghany  hills,  with  Mt.  Pisgah  supreme  among 
them,  and  the  intervening  valley  bathed  in  sun- 


THE   LAST  YEAR  335 

set  beauty.  Absorbed  away  from  those  around 
him,  he  watched  the  sunset  glow  deepen  into 
twilight,  then  sat  down  to  the  piano,  facing  the 
window.  Sorrow  and  joy  and  pain  and  hope  and 
triumph  his  soul  poured  forth.  They  felt  that  in 
that  twilight  hour  he  had  risen  to  an  angel's 
song."  i 

Lynn  is  in  a  sheltered  valley  among  the  moun 
tains  of  Polk  County,  whose  "  climate  is  tempered 
by  a  curious  current  of  warm  air  along  the  slope 
of  Tryon  Mountain,  its  northern  boundary,  a 
sort  of  ethereal  Gulf  Stream."  Here  death  came 
sooner  than  was  anticipated  by  the  brother,  who 
had  gone  back  to  Montgomery,  preceded  already 
by  his  father.  Mrs.  Lanier's  own  words  tell  the 
story  of  the  end  in  simplicity  and  love :  "  We 
are  left  alone  (August  29)  with  one  another. 
On  the  last  night  of  the  summer  comes  a  change. 
His  love  and  immortal  will  hold  off  the  destroyer 
of  our  summer  yet  one  more  week,  until  the  fore 
noon  of  September  7,  and  then  falls  the  frost, 
and  that  unfaltering  will  renders  its  supreme 
submission  to  the  adored  will  of  God."  His 
death  before  the  open  window  was  a  realiza 
tion  of  Matthew  Arnold's  wish  with  regard  to 
dying :  — 

Let  me  be, 
While  all  around  in  silence  lies, 

1  Independent,  June  28,  1894. 


336  SIDNEY   LANIER 

Moved  to  the  window  near,  and  see 
Once  more,  before  my  dying  eyes, — 

Bathed  in  the  sacred  dews  of  morn 
The  wide  aerial  landscape  spread, 
The  world  which  was  ere  I  was  born, 
The  world  which  lasts  when  I  am  dead." 

The  closing  lines  of  "  Sunrise  "  express  better 
than  anything  else  Lanier's  own  confident  faith 
as  he  passed  behind  the  veil :  — 

And  ever  my  heart  through  the  night  shall  with  know 
ledge  abide  thee, 

And  ever  by  day  shall  my  spirit,  as  one  that  hath  tried 
thee, 

Labor,  at  leisure,  in  art  —  till  yonder  beside  thee 

My  soul  shall  float,  friend  Sun, 

The  day  being  done. 

His  body  was  taken  to  Baltimore,  where  it 
rests  in  Greenmount  Cemetery  in  the  lot  of  his 
friends,  the  Turnbulls,  close  by  the  son  whose 
memory  they  have  perpetuated  by  the  endow 
ment  of  a  permanent  lectureship  on  poetry  in 
Johns  Hopkins  University.  The  grave  is  un 
marked  —  even  by  a  slab.  It  divides  the  interest 
of  visitors  to  Baltimore  with  the  grave  of  Poe, 
which,  however,  is  in  another  part  of  the  city. 
So  these  two  poets,  whose  lives  and  whose  char 
acters  were  so  strikingly  unlike,  sleep  in  their 
adopted  city. 

Shortly  after  Lanier's  death  memorial  services 


THE   LAST  YEAR  337 

were  held  at  Johns  Hopkins  University,  at  which 
time  beautiful  tributes  were  paid  to  him  by  his 
colleagues  and  friends.  A  committee  of  the  citi 
zens  of  Baltimore  was  appointed  to  raise  a  fund 
for  the  sustenance  and  education  of  the  poet's 
family.  They  were  aided  in  this  by  admirers  of 
Lanier  and  public-spirited  citizens  throughout 
the  country.  Meantime  his  fame  was  growing, 
the  publication  of  his  poems  in  1884  giving 
fresh  impetus  thereto. 

Seven  years  after  his  death  a  bust  of  the  poet 
was  presented  to  the  University  by  Mr.  Charles 
Lanier  of  New  York.1  "The  haU  was  filled," 
says  ex-President  Oilman,  "  with  a  company  of 
those  who  knew  and  admired  him.  On  the  ped 
estal  which  supported  the  bust  hung  his  flute 
and  a  roll  of  his  music ;  a  garland  of  laurels 
crowned  his  brow,  and  the  sweetest  of  flowers 
were  strewn  at  his  feet.  Letters  came  from  Low 
ell,  Holmes,  Gilder,  Stedman  ;  young  men  who 
never  saw  him,  but  who  had  come  under  his  in 
fluence,  read  their  tributes  in  verse ;  a  former 
student  of  the  University  made  a  critical  esti 
mate  of  the  4  Science  of  Verse ; '  a  lady  read 
several  of  Lanier's  own  poems ;  another  lady  sang 
one  of  his  musical  compositions  adapted  to  words 
of  Tennyson,  and  another  song,  one  of  his  to 

1  For  a  full  record  of  the  exercises  see  A  Memorial  of  Sid 
ney  Lanier,  Baltimore,  1888. 


338  SIDNEY   LANIER 

which  some  one  else  wrote  the  music ;  a  college 
president  of  New  Jersey  held  up  Lanier  as  a 
teacher  of  ethics ;  but  the  most  striking  figure 
was  the  trim,  gaunt  form  of  a  Catholic  priest, 
who  referred  to  the  day  when  they,  two  Confede 
rate  soldiers  (the  Huguenot  and  the  Catholic) , 
were  confined  in  the  Union  prison,  and  with  tears 
in  his  eyes  said,  his  love  for  Lanier  was  like  that 
of  David  for  Jonathan.  The  sweetest  of  all  the 
testimonials  came  at  the  very  last  moment,  un 
solicited  and  unexpected,  from  that  charming 
poetess,  Edith  Thomas.  She  heard  of  the  me 
morial  assembly,  and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment 
wrote  the  well-known  lines,  suggested  by  one  of 
Lanier's  own  verses :  — 

On  the  Paradise  side  of  the  river  of  death." 

The  aftermath  of  Lanier's  home  life  is  all 
pleasant  to  contemplate.  His  wife,  although  still 
an  invalid,  has,  by  her  readings  from  her  hus 
band's  letters  and  poems,  and  by  her  sympa 
thetic  help  for  all  those  who  have  cared  to  know 
more  about  him,  done  more  than  any  other  per 
son  to  extend  his  fame.  With  tremendous  ob 
stacles  in  her  way,  she  has  reared  to  manhood 
the  four  sons,  three  of  whom  are  now  actively 
identified  with  publishing  houses  in  New  York 
city,  and  one  of  whom,  bearing  the  name  of  his 
father,  is  now  living  upon  a  farm  in  Georgia. 


THE  LAST   YEAR  339 

Charles  Day  Lanier  is  president  of  the  Eeview 
of  Reviews  Company,  and  is  associated  with  his 
youngest  brother,  Robert  Sampson  Lanier,  in 
editing  "The  Country  Calendar."  Henry  Wy- 
sham  Lanier  is  a  member  of  the  firm  of  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Company,  and  editor  of  "  Country 
Life  in  America."  They  all  inherit  their  father's 
love  of  music  and  poetry,  and  through  their  maga 
zines  are  doing  much  to  foster  among  Americans 
a  taste  for  country  life.  By  a  striking  coinci 
dence —  entirely  unpremeditated  on  their  part 

three  of  the  sons  and  their  mother  live  at  Green 
wich,  Connecticut.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
the  home  of  the  English  Laniers  was  at  Green 
wich,  —  and  so  the  story  of  the  Lanier  family 
begins  and  ends  with  this  name,  —  one  in  the 
Old  World  and  one  in  the  New. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE       ACHIEVEMENT      IN       CRITICISM      AND      IN 
POETRY 

SPECULATIONS  as  to  what  Lanier  might  have 
done  with  fewer  limitations  and  with  a  longer 
span  of  years  inevitably  arise  in  the  mind  of 
any  one  who  studies  his  life.  If,  like  the  late 
Theodore  Thomas,  he  had  at  an  early  age  been 
able  to  develop  his  talent  for  music  in  the  musi 
cal  circles  of  New  York  ;  if,  like  Longfellow,  he 
had  gone  from  a  small  college  to  a  German  uni 
versity,  or,  like  Mr.  Howells,  from  the  provinces 
to  Cambridge,  where  he  would  have  come  in 
contact  with  a  group  of  men  of  letters ;  if,  after 
the  Civil  War,  he  had,  like  Hayne,  retired  to 
a  cabin  and  there  devoted  himself  entirely  to 
literary  work;  if,  like  Lowell,  he  could  have 
given  attention  to  literary  subjects  and  lectured 
in  a  university  without  teaching  classes  of  im 
mature  students  or  without  resorting  to  "  pot 
boilers,"  "  nothings  that  do  mar  the  artist's 
hand ;  "  if,  like  Poe,  he  could  have  struck  some 
one  vein  and  worked  it  for  all  it  was  worth,  — 
if,  in  a  word,  the  varied  activity  of  his  life 
could  have  given  way  to  a  certain  definiteness  of 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  341 


purpose  and  concentration  of  effort,  what  might 
have  been  the  difference !  Music  and  poetry 
strove  for  the  mastery  of  his  soul.  Swinburne, 
speaking  of  those  who  attempt  success  in  two 
realms  of  art,  says,  "  On  neither  course  can  the 
runner  of  a  double  race  attain  the  goal,  but  must 
needs  in  both  races  alike  be  caught  up  and  resign 
his  torch  to  a  runner  with  a  single  aim."  And 
yet  one  feels  that  if  Lanier  had  had  time  and 
health  to  work  out  all  these  diverse  interests 
and  all  his  varied  experiences  into  a  unity,  if 
scholarship  and  music  and  poetry  could  have 
been  developed  simultaneously  over  a  long  stretch 
of  time,  there  would  have  resulted,  perhaps,  a 
more  many-sided  man  and  a  finer  poetry  than  we 
have  yet  had  in  America. 

So  at  last  the  speculation  reduces  itself  to  one 
of  time.  Lycidas  was  dead  ere  his  prime.  From 
1876  till  the  fatal  illness  took  hold  of  him  he 
made  great  strides  in  poetry.  Up  to  the  very 
last  he  was  making  plans  for  the  future.  His 
letters  to  friends  outlining  the  volumes  that  he 
hoped  to  publish,  —  work  demanding  decades  in 
stead  of  years,  —  the  memoranda  jotted  down  on 
bits  of  paper  or  backs  of  envelopes  as  the  rough 
drafts  of  essays  or  poems,  would  be  pathetic,  if 
one  did  not  believe  with  Lanier  that  death  is  a 
mere  incident  in  an  eternal  life,  or  with  Brown 
ing,  that  what  a  man  would  do  exalts  him.  The 


342  SIDNEY   LANIER 

lines  of  Robert  Browning's  poems  in  which  he 
sets  forth  the  glory  of  the  life  of  aspiration  —  as 
piration  independent  of  any  achievement  —  ring 
in  one's  ears,  as  he  reads  the  story  of  Lanier's  life. 

This  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it; 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 

The  imperfect  poems,  the  unfinished  poems,  the 
sheaves  unharvested,  not  like  Coleridge's  for 
lack  of  will,  but  for  lack  of  time,  are  suggestive 
of  one  of  the  finest  aspects  of  romantic  art.  "  I 
would  rather  fail  at  some  things  I  wot  of  than 
succeed  at  others,"  said  Lanier.  There  are  moods 
when  the  imperfection  of  Lanier  pleases  more 
than  the  perfection  of  Poe  —  even  from  the  ar 
tistic  standpoint.  What  he  aspired  to  be  enters 
into  one's  whole  thought  about  his  life  and  his 
art.  The  vista  of  his  grave  opens  up  into  the 
unseen  world. 

On  earth  the  broken  arcs;  in  the  heaven  a  perfect  round. 

But  the  time  comes  when  none  of  these  con 
siderations —  neither  admiration  for  the  man, 
nor  speculations  as  to  what  he  might  have  done 
under  different  circumstances,  nor  thoughts  as 
to  what  he  may  be  doing  in  larger,  other  worlds 
than  ours  —  should  interfere  with  a  judicial 
estimate  of  what  he  really  achieved.  It  would 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  343 

have  been  the  miracle  of  history  if  with  all  his 
obstacles  he  had  not  had  limitations  as  a  writer ; 
and  yet  many  who  have  insisted  most  on  his  suf 
ferings,  have  resented  any  criticism  passed  upon 
his  work.  One  has  the  authority  of  Lanier's 
writings  about  other  men  and  his  letters  about 
his  own  poems  for  judging  him  only  by  the 
highest  standards.  Did  he  in  aiming  at  a  million 
miss  a  unit  ?  Was  he  blinded  by  the  very  excess 
of  light  ?  How  will  he  fare  in  that  race  with  time 
of  which  a  contemporary  essayist  has  written? 
"  When  the  admiration  of  his  friends  no  longer 
counts,  when  his  friends  and  admirers  are  them 
selves  gathered  to  the  same  silent  throng,"  will 
there  be  enough  inherent  worth  in  his  work  to 
keep  his  fame  alive  ?  These  are  questions  that 
one  has  a  right  to  ask. 

And,  first,  as  to  Lanier's  prose  work.  He  has 
suffered  from  the  fact  that  so  many  of  his  un- 
revised  works  have  been  published  ;  these  have 
their  excuse  for  being  in  the  light  they  throw 
on  his  life ;  but  otherwise  some  of  them  are  dis 
appointing.  If,  instead  of  ten  volumes  of  prose, 
there  could  be  selected  his  best  work  from  all 
of  them,  there  would  still  be  a  residue  of  writ 
ing  that  would  establish  Lanier's  place  among 
the  prose  writers  of  America.  There  is  no  better 
illustration  of  his  development  than  that  seen 
in  comparing  his  early  prose  —  the  war  letters 


344  SIDNEY   LANIER 

and  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  for  instance,  or  such  essays 
as  "  Retrospects  and  Prospects  "  —  with  that  of 
his  maturer  years.  I  doubt  if  justice  has  been 
done  to  Lanier's  best  style,  its  clearness,  flu 
ency,  and  eloquence.  It  may  be  claimed  without 
dispute  that  he  was  a  rare  good  letter-writer; 
perhaps  only  Lowell's  letters  are  more  inter 
esting.  The  faults  of  his  poetry  are  not  always 
seen  in  his  best  letters.  In  them  there  is  a  play 
fulness,  a  richness  of  humor,  an  exuberance  of 
spirits,  animated  talk  about  himself  and  his  work, 
and  withal  a  distinct  style,  that  ought  to  keep 
them  alive.  There  might  be  selected,  too,  a 
volume  of  essays,  including  "  From  Bacon  to 
Beethoven,"  "  The  Orchestra  of  To-Day,"  "  San 
Antonio  de  Bexar,"  "  The  Confederate  Memo 
rial  Address,"  "  The  New  South,"  and  others. 

A  volume  of  American  Criticism,  edited  by 
Mr.  William  Morton  Payne,  includes  Lanier 
among  the  dozen  best  American  critics,  giving 
a  selection  from  the  "  English  Novel  "  as  a  typi 
cal  passage.  Has  he  a  right  to  be  in  such  a  book  ? 
His  work  as  a  scholar  has  been  discussed  in  a 
previous  chapter ;  his  rank  as  a  critic  is  a  very 
different  matter.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
Lanier  was  not  a  great  critic.  He  did  not  have 
the  learning  requisite  for  one.  One  might  turn 
the  words  of  his  criticism  of  Poe  and  say  that  he 
needed  to  know  more.  He  knew  but  little  of  the 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  345 

classics  beyond  what  he  studied  in  college ;  while 
he  read  French  and  German  literature  to  some 
extent,  he  did  not  go  into  them  as  Lowell  did. 
Homer,  Dante,  and  Goethe  were  but  little  more 
than  names  to  him.  Furthermore,  his  criticism 
is  often  marked  by  a  tendency  to  indulge  in 
hasty  generalizations,  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had 
not  sufficient  facts  to  draw  upon.  An  illustration 
is  his  preference  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnets  to 
the  English  sonnets  written  on  the  Italian  model, 
or  his  discussion  of  personality  as  found  in  the 
Greek  drama.  His  generalizations  are  often 
either  patently  obvious  or  far-fetched.  He  was 
too  eager  to  "  bring  together  people  and  books 
that  never  dreamed  of  being  side  by  side."  His 
tendency  to  fancy,  so  marked  in  his  poetry,  is 
seen  also  in  his  criticism,  as  for  instance,  his  com 
parison  of  a  sonnet  to  a  little  drama,  or  his  state 
ment  that  every  poem  has  a  plot,  a  crisis,  and  a 
hero.  He  had  De  Quincey's  habit  of  digressing 
from  the  main  theme,  —  what  he  himself  called 
in  speaking  of  an  Elizabethan  poet,  the  "  con 
stant  temptation,  to  the  vigorous  and  springy 
mind  of  the  poet,  to  bound  off  wherever  his 
momentary  fancy  may  lead  him."  This  is  es 
pecially  seen  in  his  lectures  on  the  English 
Novel,  where  he  is  often  carried  far  afield  from 
the  general  theme.  In  his  lectures  on  "  Shak- 
spere  and  His  Forerunners,"  he  was  so  often 


346  SIDNEY   LANIER 

troubled  with  an  embarrassment  of  riches  that  he 
did  not  endeavor  to  follow  a  rigidly  formed  plan. 

A  more  serious  defect,  however,  was  his  lack 
of  catholicity  of  judgment.  He  had  all  of  Carlyle's 
distaste  for  the  eighteenth  century  ;  his  dislike  of 
Pope  was  often  expressed,  and  he  went  so  far  as 
to  wish  that  the  novels  of  Fielding  and  Rich 
ardson  might  be  "  blotted  from  the  face  of  the 
earth."  His  characterization  of  Thackeray  as  a 
"  low-pitched  artist  "  is  wide  of  the  mark.  As 
Lanier  had  his  dislikes  in  literature  and  ex 
pressed  them  vigorously,  so  he  over-praised  many 
men.  When  he  says,  for  instance,  that  Bartholo 
mew  Griffin  "  will  yet  obtain  a  high  and  immor 
tal  place  in  English  literature,"  or  that  William 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  is  one  of  "  the  chief 
glories  of  the  English  tongue,"  or  that  Gavin 
Douglas  is  "  one  of  the  greatest  poets  of  our  lan 
guage,"  one  wonders  to  what  extent  the  "  pleas 
ant  peril  of  enthusiasm "  will  carry  a  man. 
One  may  be  an  admirer  of  George  Eliot  and  yet 
feel  that  Lanier  has  overstated  her  merits  as 
compared  with  other  English  novelists,  and  that 
his  praise  of  "  Daniel  Deronda  "  is  excessive. 

Such  defects  as  are  here  suggested  should  not, 
however,  blind  the  reader  to  some  of  Lanier's 
better  work.  The  history  of  criticism,  especially 
of  romantic  criticism,  is  full  of  just  such  un 
balanced  judgments.  It  is  often  true  in  criticism 


CRITICISM   AND  POETRY  347 

that  a  man  "  should  like  what  he  does  like ;  and 
his  likings  are  facts  in  criticism  for  him."  With 
out  very  great  learning  and  with  strong  preju 
dices  in  some  directions,  Lanier  yet  had  re 
markable  insight  into  literature.  Lowell's  say 
ing  that  he  was  "  a  man  of  genius  with  a  rare 
gift  for  the  happy  word  "  is  especially  true  of 
some  of  his  critical  writing.  Examples  are  his 
well-known  characterizations  of  great  men  in 
"  The  Crystal :  "  - 

Buddha,  beautiful!  I  pardon  thee 
That  all  the  All  thou  hadst  for  needy  man 
Was  Nothing,  and  thy  Best  of  being  was 
But  not  to  be. 

Langley,  that  with  but  a  touch 
Of  art  had  sung  Piers  Plowman  to  the  top 
Of  English  song,  whereof 't  is  dearest,  now 
And  most  adorable. 

Emerson, 

Most  wise,  that  yet,  in  finding  Wisdom,  lost 
Thy  Self,  sometimes. 

Tennyson,  largest  voice 
Since  Milton,  yet  some  register  of  wit 
Wanting. 

There  are  scattered  throughout  his  prose  works 
criticisms  of  writers  that  are  at  once  penetrating 
and  subtle.  The  one  on  Browning  has  already 
been  quoted.  The  best  known  of  these  criticisms 
is  that  on  Walt  Whitman,  but  it  is  too  long  for 


348  SIDNEY   LANIER 

insertion  here.  There  is  a  sentence  in  one  of  his 
letters  to  Bayard  Taylor,  however,  that  hits  the 
mark  better  than  the  longer  criticism,  perhaps : 
"  Upon  a  sober  comparison,  I  think  Walt  Whit 
man's  4  Leaves  of  Grass  '  worth  at  least  a  million 
of  '  Among  my  Books '  and  4  Atalanta  in  Caly- 
don.'  In  the  two  latter  I  could  not  find  anything 
which  has  not  been  much  better  said  before; 
but  4  Leaves  of  Grass '  was  real  refreshing  to  me 
—  like  rude  salt  spray  in  your  face  —  in  spite 
of  its  enormous  fundamental  error  that  a  thing 
is  good  because  it  is  natural,  and  in  spite  of  the 
world-wide  difference  between  my  own  concep 
tions  of  art  and  the  author's."  Another  good 
one  is  that  on  Shelley :  "  In  truth,  Shelley  ap 
pears  always  to  have  labored  under  an  essential 
immaturity:  it  is  very  possible  that  if  he  had 
lived  a  hundred  years  he  would  never  have  be 
come  a  man;  he  was  penetrated  with  modern 
ideas,  but  penetrated  as  a  boy  would  be,  crudely, 
overmuch,  and  with  a  constant  tendency  to  the 
extravagant  and  illogical;  so  that  I  call  him 
the  modern  boy." 

Lanier  writes  of  the  songs  of  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  as  "  short  and  unstudied  lit 
tle  songs,  as  many  of  them  are,  songs  which  come 
upon  us  out  of  that  obscure  period  like  brief 
little  bird-calls  from  a  thick-leaved  wood."  He 
speaks  of  Chaucer's  works  as  "  full  of  cunning 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  349 

hints  and  twinkle-eyed  suggestions  which  peep 
between  the  lines  like  the  comely  faces  of  country 
children  between  the  fence  bars  as  one  rides  by." 
He  draws  a  fine  comparison  between  William 
Morris  and  Chaucer :  "  How  does  the  spire  of 
hope  spring  and  upbound  into  the  infinite  in 
Chaucer ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  how  blank, 
world-bound,  and  wearying  is  the  stone  facade 
of  hopelessness  which  rears  itself  uncompro 
misingly  behind  the  gayest  pictures  of  William 
Morris  !  .  .  .  Again,  how  openly  joyful  is  Chau 
cer,  how  secretly  melancholy  is  Morris !  Both, 
it  is  true,  are  full  of  sunshine  ;  but  Chaucer's 
is  spring  sunshine,  Morris's  is  autumn.  .  .  . 
Chaucer  rejoices  as  only  those  can  who  know 
the  bound  of  good  red  blood  through  unob 
structed  veins,  and  the  thrilling  tingle  of  nerve 
and  sinew  at  amity  ;  and  who  can  transport  this 
healthy  animalism  into  their  unburdened  minds, 
and  spiritualize  it  so  that  the  mere  drawing  of 
breath  is  at  once  a  keen  delight  and  an  inwardly 
felt  practical  act  of  praise  to  the  God  of  a  strong 
and  beautiful  world.  Morris  too  has  his  sensuous 
element,  but  it  is  utterly  unlike  Chaucer's ;  it  is 
dilettante,  it  is  amateur  sensualism ;  it  is  not 
strong,  though  sometimes  excessive,  and  it  is 
nervously  afraid  of  that  satiety  which  is  at  once 
its  chief  temptation  and  its  most  awful  doom. 
"  Again,  Chaucer  lives,  Morris  dreams.  .  .  . 


350  SIDNEY   LANIER 

4  The  Canterbury  Tales '  is  simply  a  drama  with 
somewhat  more  of  stage  direction  than,  is  com 
mon  ;  but  the  4  Earthly  Paradise  '  is  a  reverie, 
which  would  hate  nothing  so  much  as  to  be 
broken  by  any  collision  with  that  rude  actual  life 
which  Chaucer  portrays. 

"  And,  finally,  note  the  faith  that  shines  in 
Chaucer  and  the  doubt  that  darkens  in  Morris. 
Has  there  been  any  man  since  St.  John  so  lova 
ble  as  the  4  Persoune '  ?  or  any  sermon  since 
that  on  the  Mount  so  keenly  analytical,  ...  as 
'  The  Persoune's  Tale '  ?  .  .  .  A  true  Hindu  life- 
weariness  (to  use  one  of  Novalis'  marvelous 
phrases)  is  really  the  atmosphere  which  pro 
duces  the  exquisite  haze  of  Morris's  pictures. 
.  .  .  Can  any  poet  shoot  his  soul's  arrow  to  its 
best  height,  when  at  once  bow  and  string  and 
muscle  and  nerve  are  slackened  in  this  vaporous 
and  relaxing  air,  that  conies  up  out  of  the  old 
dreams  of  fate  that  were  false  and  of  passions 
that  were  not  pure  ?  "  l 

Lanier's  enthusiasm  for  Chaucer  is  typical  of 
much  of  his  critical  writing.  He  was  a  generous 
praiser  of  the  best  literature,  and  generally  his 
praise  was  right.  "  Lyrics  of  criticism  "  would 
be  a  good  title  for  many  of  his  passages.  There 
was  nothing  of  indifferentism  in  him.  In  a  letter 
to  Gibson  Peacock  he  wrote  of  a  certain  type  of 

1  Music  and  Poetry,  p.  198. 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  351 

criticism  which,  it  may  be  said,  has  been  widely 
prevalent  in  recent  years  :  "  In  the  very  short 
time  that  I  have  been  in  the  hands  of  the  critics, 
nothing  has  amazed  me  more  than  the  timid 

O 

solicitudes  with  which  they  rarefy  in  one  line 
any  enthusiasm  they  may  have  condensed  in  an 
other — .a  process  curiously  analogous  to  those 
irregular  condensations  and  rarefactions  of  air 
which  physicists  have  shown  to  be  the  conditions 
of  producing  an  indeterminate  sound.  Many  of 
my  critics  have  seemed  —  if  I  may  change  the 
figure  —  to  be  forever  conciliating  the  yet-unrisen 
ghosts  of  possible  mistakes."  Enough  quotations 
have  already  been  given  from  his  lectures  in 
Baltimore  to  show  his  enthusiasm  for  many  of 
the  periods  and  many  of  the  authors  of  English 
literature.  It  is  a  distinction  for  him  as  a  critic 
that  he  has  set  forth  in  so  many  passages  his 
conception  of  the  mission  of  poetry,  —  passages 
that  are  in  the  line  of  succession  of  defenses  of 
poetry  by  Sidney,  Hazlitt,  and  Shelley. 

There  is  enough  good  criticism  in  the  Shake 
speare  lectures  and  in  the  "  English  Novel,"  in 
the  prefaces  of  the  boy's  books  and  in  his  letters, 
to  make  a  volume  of  interest  and  importance. 
Suppose  we  cease  to  think  of  the  first  two  as 
formal  treatises  on  the  subjects  they  discuss,  and 
rather  select  from  them  such  passages  as  the 
discussion  of  personality,  the  relation  of  music, 


352  SIDNEY   LANIER 

science,  and  the  novel,  the  criticism  of  Whitman's 
theory  of  art,  the  discussion  of  the  relation  of 
morals  to  art,  the  best  passages  on  Anglo-Saxon 
poetry  and  the  Elizabethan  sonneteers,  and  the 
finer  passages  on  Shakespeare's  growth  as  a  man 
and  as  a  dramatist.  Such  a  volume  would,  I 
believe,  confirm  one  in  the  opinion  that  Lanier 
belongs  by  right  among  the  best  American  critics. 
Certainly,  the  "  Science  of  English  Verse  "  en 
titles  him  to  that  distinction. 

About  1875  Lanier  became  interested  in  the 
formal  side  of  poetry  and  projected  a  work  on  a 
scientific  basis.  It  was  natural  that  one  who 
had  so  much  reverence  for  science  and  who  had 
studied  the  "  physics. of  music,"  should  apply  the 
scientific  method  to  the  study  of  poetry.  He 
knew  that  the  science  of  versification  was  not 
the  most  important  phase  of  poetry  :  in  the  pre 
face,  as  in  the  epilogue,  to  the  "  Science  of  Eng 
lish  Yerse,"  he  makes  clear  that  "  for  the  artist 
in  verse  there  is  no  law :  the  perception  and  love 
of  beauty  constitute  the  whole  outfit."  In  many 
other  passages  in  his  writings  may  be  seen  his 
view  of  the  moral  significance  of  poetry.  He 
desired,  however,  to  formulate  for  himself  and 
for  students  certain  metrical  laws.  What  differ 
entiates  poetry  from  prose  ?  How  does  a  writer 
produce  certain  effects  with  certain  rhythms 
and  vowel  and  consonant  arrangements?  The 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  353 

student  wishes  to  know  why  the  forms  are  fair 
and  hear  how  the  tale  is  told.  By  the  study  of 
rhythm,  tune,  and  color,  Lanier  believed  that 
one  might  receive  "  a  whole  new  world  of  possi 
ble  delight."  He  believed  with  Sylvester  that 
"  versification  has  a  technical  side  quite  as  well 
capable  of  being  reduced  to  rules  as  that  of 
painting  or  any  other  fine  art."  His  book  was 
intended  to  furnish  students  with  such  an  outfit 
of  facts  and  principles  as  would  serve  for  pursu 
ing  further  researches. 

The  time  was  ripe  for  such  a  study.  Lanier 
wrote  to  Mr.  Stedman  that  "  in  all  directions 
the  poetic  art  was  suffering  from  the  shameful 
circumstance  that  criticism  was  without  a  scien 
tific  basis."  The  book  at  once  received  com 
mendation  from  competent  critics.  Edward  Row 
land  Sill  wrote  Dr.  Gilman  that  it  was  "  the 
only  thing  extant  on  that  subject  that  is  of  any 
earthly  value.  I  wonder  that  so  few  seem  to 
have  discovered  its  great  merit,"  —  an  opinion 
afterwards  repeated  by  him  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly."  The  late  Richard  Hovey,  in  a  series 
of  articles  in  the  "  Independent  "  on  the  technic 
of  poetry,  said  that  Lanier  had  begun  such  a 
scientific  study  with  "  great  soundness  and  com 
mon  sense  ; "  the  book  is  "  accurate,  scientific, 
sus^estive."  The  editor  of  the  "  Dial "  referred 

OO 

to  it  as  "  the  most  striking  and  thoughtful  ex- 


354  SIDNEY   LANIER 

position  yet  published  on  the  technics  of  English 
poetry."  Within  the  past  ten  years  books  on 
English  verse  have  multiplied  fast.  In  Germany, 
in  England,  and  in  America,  the  discussion  of 
metrics  has  gone  on.  While  dissenting  from 
some  of  Lanier's  conclusions,  few  of  the  writers 
have  failed  to  recognize  his  work  as  of  great  im 
portance.1  One  man  rarely  sees  all  round  any 
great  subject  like  this,  —  each  man  sees  some 
one  special  point  and  states  it  in  an  individual 
way,  and  finally,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  truth 
is  evolved. 

There  is  little  objection  to  Parts  II  and  III  of 
the  "  Science  of  English  Verse."  They  are  gen 
erally  recognized  as  strikingly  suggestive  and 
helpful.  It  is  with  the  main  thesis  of  the  first 
part  that  many  disagree — the  author's  insist- 
( ence  that  the  laws  of  music  and  of  verse  are 
identical.  ^According  to  Lanier,  verse  is  in  all 
respects  a  phenomenon  of  sound.  From  time 
immemorial  the  relation  of  music  and  of  poetry 
has  been  spoken  of  in  figurative  terms,  as  in 
Carlyle's  discussion' of  the  subject  in  the  essay 
on  the  "  Hero  as  Poet."  Lanier,  however,  was 
the  first  to  work  the  idea  out  in  a  thorough-going 
fashion.  He  was  especially  qualified  to  do  so 

1  See,  for  instance.  Winchester's  Principles  of  Literary 
Criticism,  Alden's  English  Verse,  Paul  Elmer  Here's  Shelburne 
Essays,  and  Omond's  English  Metrists. 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  355 

because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  two  arts.  His 
general  conclusion  was  the  same  as  that  reached 
by  Professor  Gummere  in  his  searching  discussion 
of  "  Rhythm  as  the  Essential  Fact  of  Poetry."  * 
Both  of  them  saw  that  the  origin  of  poetry  was 
in  the  dance  and  the  march,  and  later  the  song. 
In  modern  times  the  two  arts  had  become  dis 
tinct.  Lanier  believed  that,  in  accordance  with 
its  origin  and  the  practice  of  the  best  poets,  the 
basis  of  rhythm  is  time  and  not  accent.  Every 
line  is  made  up  of  bars  of  equal  time  value. 
"  If  this  equality  of  time  were  taken  away,  no 
possibility  of  rhythm  would  remain."  "  The 
accent  serves  only  to  mark  for  the  ear  these 
equal  intervals  of  time,  which  are  the  units  of 
poetic  measurement."  Lanier 's  theory  of  quan 
tity,  however,  is  different  from  the  rigid  laws  of 
classic  quantity,  for  he  allows  for  variations  from 
the  regular  type  of  verse  that  may  prevail  in  a 
certain  poem  or  line,  thus  providing  for  "  an  es 
cape  out  of  the  rigidities  of  the  type  into  the  in 
finite  field  of  those  subtle  rhythms  which  pervade 
familiar  utterance."  He  separates  himself  there 
fore  from  such  writers  as  Abbott  and  Guest,  who 
applied  the  rule  of  thumb  to  English  verse.  To 
such  men  "  Shakspere's  verse  has  often  seemed 
a  mass  of  'license,'  of  'irregularity,'  and  of 
lawless  anomaly  to  commentators ;  while,  ap- 

1  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  chapter  2. 


356  SIDNEY   LANIER 

preached  from  the  direction  of  that  great  rhyth 
mic  sense  of  humanity  displayed  in  music,  in  all 
manner  of  folk-songs,  and  in  common  talk,  it  is 
perfect  music." 

Lanier's  theory  is  a  good  one  in  so  far  as  it 
applies  to  the  ideal  rhythm,  for  the  melody  of 
verse  does  approximate  that  of  music.  If  one 
considers  actual  rhythm,  however,  he  is  forced  to 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  no  such  mathemati 
cal  relation  exists  between  the  syllables  of  a  foot 
of  verse  as  that  existing  between  the  notes  of  a 
musical  bar.  In  poetry  another  element  enters 
in  to  interfere  with  the  ideal  rhythm  of  music, 
and  that  is  what  Mr.  More  has  called  "  the 
normal  unrhythmical  enunciation  of  the  lan 
guage."  The  result  is  a  compromise  shifting  to 
ward  one  extreme  or.  another.  Lanier's  theory 
would  apply  to  the  earliest  folk-songs.  He  illus 
trated  his  point  by  referring  to  the  negro  melo 
dies,  which,  says  Joel  Chandler  Harris,  "  depend 
for  their  melody  and  rhythm  upon  the  musical 
quality  of  the  time,  and  not  upon  long  or  short, 
accented  or  unaccented  syllables."  His  citation 
of  Japanese  poetry  was  also  a  case  in  point. 
Unquestionably,  the  lyrics  and  choruses  of  the 
Greek  drama  were  thoroughly  musical ;  Sopho 
cles  and  ^Eschylus  were  both  teachers  of  the 
chorus.  Many  of  the  lyrics  of  the  Elizabethan 
age  were  written  especially  for  music,  and  more 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  357 

than  one  collector  of  these  lyrics  has  bemoaned 
the  fact  that  in  later  times  there  has  been  such 
a  divorce  between  the  two  arts.    Who  will  say 
that    Coleridge's    "  Christabel"    and    "  Kubla 
Khan  "  are  not  disembodied  music  ?  Lamb  said 
that  Coleridge  repeated  the  latter  poem  "  so  en- 
chantingly  that  it  irradiates  and  brings  heaven 
and  elysian  bowers  into  any  parlor  when  he  says 
or  sings  it  to  me."    Mr.  Arthur  Symons  has  re 
cently  said:  " <  Christabel '  is  composed  like  music; 
you  might  set  at  the  side  of  each  section,  espe 
cially  of  the  opening,  largo  vivacissimo,  and  as 
the  general  expressive  signature,  tempo  rubato." 
Tennyson  realized  the  musical  effect  of  "  Paradise 
Lost "  when  he  spoke  of  Milton  as  "  England's 
God-gifted  organ-voice  ;  "  and  he  himself  in  such 
lyrics  as  those  in  the  "  Princess  "  and  the  eighty- 
sixth  canto  of  "  In  Memoriam  "  wrought  musical 
effects  with  verse.    Mr.  Theodore  Watts-Dunton 
says  of  Poe's  "  Ulalume  "  that,  if  properly  in 
toned,   "  it    would  produce  something  like  the 
same  effect  upon  a  listener  knowing  no  word  of 
English  that  it  produces  upon  us.' '    It  needs  to  be 
said,  in  parenthesis,  that  in  all  these  cases,  while 
there  is  the  musical  effect  from  the  standpoint 
of  time  and  tone-color,  there  is  still  the  perfec 
tion  of  speech.    The  theory  will  not  hold,  how 
ever,  in  much  dramatic  verse,  or  in  meditative 
blank  verse,  as  used  by  Wordsworth.    Much  of 


358  SIDNEY   LANIER 

the  poetry  of  Byron,  Browning,  Keats,  and 
Shakespeare,  while  supremely  great  from  the 
standpoint  of  color,  or  dramatic  power,  or  pictur- 
esqueness,  or  thought,  is  not  musical.  To  bring 
some  poems  within  the  limit  of  musical  notation 
would  be  impossible. 

While  then  one  must  modify  Lanier's  theory, 
the  book  emphasizes  a  point  that  needs  con 
stantly  to  be  emphasized,  both  by  poets  and  by 
students  of  poetry.  Followed  too  closely  by  minor 
poets,  it  will  tend  to  develop  artisans  rather  than 
artists.  Followed  by  the  greater  poets, —  con 
sciously  or  unconsciously, —  it  may  prove  to  be 
one  of  the  surest  signs  of  poetry.  This  phase 
of  poetical  work  needed  to  be  emphasized  in 
America,  where  poetry,  with  the  exception  of 
Poe's,  has  been  deficient  in  this  very  element. 
Whatever  else  one  may  say  of  Emerson,  Bryant, 
Whit  tier,  or  Longfellow,  he  must  find  that  their 
poetry  as  a  whole  is  singularly  lacking  in  melod}^ 
Moreover,  the  poet  who  was  the  most  domi 
nant  figure  in  American  literature  at  the  time 
when  Lanier  was  writing,  prided  himself  on 
violating  every  law  of  form,  using  rhythm,  if 
at  all,  in  a  certain  elementary  or  oriental  sense. 
"  I  tried  to  read  a  beautifully  printed  and  schol 
arly  volume  on  the  theory  of  poetry  received  by 
mail  this  morning  from  England,"  said  Whit 
man,  "  but  gave  it  up  at  last  as  a  bad  job."  One 


CRITICISM   AND  POETRY  359 

may  be  thoroughly  just  to  Whitman  and  grant 
the  worth  of  his  work  in  American  literature, 
and  yet  see  the  value  of  Lanier's  contention  that 
the  study  of  the  formal  element  in  poetry  will 
lead  to  a  much  finer  poetry  than  we  have  yet 
had  in  this  country.  Other  books  will  supplant 
the  "  Science  of  English  Verse  "  as  text-books, 
and  few  may  ever  read  it  understandingly ;  but 
the  author's  name  will  always  be  thought  of  in 
any  discussion  of  the  relations  of  music  and 
poetry.  It  is  not  only  a  scientific  monograph, 
but  a  philosophical  treatise  on  a  subject  that 
will  be  discussed  with  increasing  interest. 

While  Lanier  thus  stated  his  conception  of  the 
formal  element  in  poetry,  he  has,  in  many  other 
places,  given  his  ideas  of  the  poet's  character  and 
his  work  in  the  world.  If  on  the  one  hand  he 
criticised  Whitman  for  lack  of  form,  on  the  other 
he  blamed  Swinburne  for  lack  of  substance. 
Seemingly  a  follower  of  Poe,  he  yet  would  have 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  that  poet  for  adopting 
the  "  heresy  of  the  didactic."  He  had  an  exalted 
sense  of  what  poetry  means  in  the  redemption 
of  mankind.  He  had  little  patience  with  the 
cry,  "  Art  for  art's  sake,"  or  with  the  justifica 
tion  so  often  made  for  the  immorality  of  the 
artist's  life.  Milton  himself  did  not  believe  more 
ardently  that  a  poet's  life  ought  to  be  a  true 


360  SIDNEY   LANIER 

poem.  In  the  poems  "  Individuality,"  "  Clover," 
"  Life  and  Song,"  and  the  "  Psalm  of  the  West," 
Lanier  expresses  his  view  of  the  responsibility 
of  the  artist.  In  the  first  he  says  :  — 

Awful  is  Art  because  't  is  free ; 
The  artist  trembles  o'er  his  plan 
Where  men  his  Self  must  see, 

In  the  "  English  Novel "  he  says  :  "  For,  in 
deed,  we  may  say  that  he  who  has  not  yet  per 
ceived  how  artistic  beauty  and  moral  beauty  are 
convergent  lines  which  run  back  into  a  common 
ideal  origin,  and  who  is  therefore  not  afire  with 
moral  beauty  just  as  with  artistic  beauty  ;  that 
he,  in  short,  who  has  not  come  to  that  stage  of 
quiet  and  eternal  frenzy  in  which  the  beauty 
of  holiness  and  the  holiness  of  beauty  mean  one 
thing,  burn  as  one  fire,  shine  as  one  light  within 
him,  he  is  not  yet  the  great  artist." 

Lanier  believed  that  he  was,  or  would  be,  a 
great  poet.  While  for  a  time  he  considered 
music  as  his  special  field  of  work  and  "  poetry  as 
a  mere  tangent,"  after  1875  his  aspiration  took 
the  direction  of  poetry.  Criticism  of  his  work 
only  strengthened  his  conviction  that  it  was  of  a 
high  order.  Letters  to  his  father  and  to  his  wife 
indicate  his  positive  conviction  that  he  was  meet 
ing  with  the  misunderstanding  that  every  great 
artist  has  met  since  the  world  began  :  "  Let  my 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  361 

name  perish,  —  the  poetry  is  good  poetry  and  the 
music  is  good  music,  and  beauty  dieth  not,  and 
the  heart  that  needs  it  will  find  it."  "  I  know, 
through  the  fiercest  tests  of  life,  that  I  am  in  soul, 
and  shall  be  in  life  and  utterance,  a  great  poet," 
he  said  again. 

Accordingly  he  hoped  that  he  would  accomplish 
something  different  from  the  popular  poetry  of 
the  period.  Time  and  again  he  spoke  of  "  the 
feeble  magazine  lyrics "  of  his  time.  "  This  is 
the  kind  of  poetry  that  is  technically  called  cul 
ture  poetry,  yet  it  is  in  reality  the  product  of  a 
want  of  culture.  If  these  gentlemen  and  ladies 
would  read  the  old  English  poetry  .  .  .  they 
could  never  be  content  to  put  forth  these  little 
diffuse  prettinessess  and  dandy  kickshaws  of 
verse."  And  again  :  "  In  looking  around  at  the 
publications  of  the  younger  American  poets,  I 
am  struck  with  the  circumstance  that  none  of 
them  even  attempt  anything  great.  .  .  .  Hence 
the  endless  multiplications  of  those  little  feeble 
magazine  lyrics  which  we  all  know:  consisting 
of  one  minute  idea  each,  which  is  put  in  the 
last  line  of  the  fourth  verse,  the  other  three 
verses  and  three  lines  being  mere  surplusage." 
His  characterizations  of  contemporary  poetry  are 
strikingly  like  those  of  Walt  Whitman.  Dif 
ferent  as  they  were  in  nearly  every  respect,  the 
two  poets  were  yet  alike  in  their  idea  that  there 


362  SIDNEY   LANIER 

should  be  a  reaction  against  the  conventional 
and  artificial  poetry  of  their  time,  —  the  differ 
ence  being,  that  Whitman's  reaction  took  the 
direction  of  formlessness,  while  Lanier's  was  con 
cerned  about  the  extension  and  revival  of  poetic 
forms.  In  both  poets  there  is  a  range  and  sweep, 
both  of  conception  and  of  utterance,  that  sharply 
differentiates  them  from  all  other  poets  since  the 
Civil  War. 

The  question  then  is,  whether  Lanier,  with  his 
lofty  conception  of  the  poet's  work,  and  with  his 
faith  in  himself,  succeeded  in  writing  poetry  that 
will  stand  the  test  of  time.  He  undoubtedly  had 
some  of  the  necessary  qualities  of  a  poet.  He 
had,  first  of  all,  a  sense  of  melody  that  found 
vent  primarily  in  music  and  then  in  words  which 
moved  with  a  certain  rhythmic  cadence.  "  A  holy 
tune  was  in  my  soul  when  I  fell  asleep ;  it  was 
going  when  I  awoke.  This  melody  is  always 
moving  along  in  the  background  of  my  spirit.  If 
I  wish  to  compose,  I  abstract  my  attention  from 
the  things  which  occupy  the  front  of  the  stage, 
the  dramatis  personae  of  the  moment,  and  fix 
myself  upon  the  deeper  scene  in  the  rear."  "  All 
day  my  soul  hath  been  cutting  swiftly  into  the 
great  space  of  the  subtle,  unspeakable  deep, 
driven  by  wind  after  wind  of  heavenly  melody," 
he  writes  at  another  time.  His  best  poems  move 
to  the  cadence  of  a  tune.  He  probably  heard 


o 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  363 

them  as  did  Milton  the  lines  of  "  Paradise  Lost." 
Sometimes  there  was  a  lilt  like  the  singing  of  a 
bird,  and  sometimes  the  lyric  cry,  and  yet  again 
the  music  of  the  orchestra.  "  He  has  an  ear  for 
the  distribution  of  instruments,  and  this  gives 
him  a  desire  for  the  antiphonal,  for  introducing 
an  answer,  or  an  echo,  or  a  compensating  note," 
says  Mr.  Higginson.  Sometimes,  as  in  the 
"Marshes  of  Glynn  "  and  in  the  best  parts  of 
"  Sunrise,"  there  is  a  cosmic  rhythm  that  is 
like  unto  the  rhythmic  beating  of  the  heart  of 
God,  of  which  Poe  and  Lanier  have  written 
eloquently. 

Besides  this  melody  that  was  temperamental, 
Lanier  had  ideas.  He  was  alive  to  the  problems 
of  his  age  and  to  the  beauties  of  nature.  One 
has  only  to  think  of  the  names  of  his  poems  to 
realize  how  many  themes  occupied  his  attention. 
He  wrote  of  religion,  social  questions,  science, 
philosophy,  nature,  love.  "  My  head  and  my 
heart  are  both  [so]  full  of  poems,"  he  says. 
"  So  many  great  ideas  for  art  are  born  to  me 
each  day,  I  am  swept  into  the  land  of  All-delight 
by  their  strenuous  sweet  whirlwind."  "  Every 
leaf  that  I  brush  against  breeds  a  poem."  "  A 
thousand  vital  elements  rill  through  my  soul." 
So  he  is  in  no  sense  a  "  jingle  man."  There  is 
a  note  of  healthy  mysticism  in  his  poetry  that 
makes  him  akin  to  Wordsworth  and  Emerson.  A 


364  SIDNEY  LANIER 

series  of  poems  might  be  selected  that  would  en 
title  him  to  the  praise  of  being  "  the  friend  and 
aider  of  those  who  would  live  in  the  spirit." 

With  the  spiritual  endowment  of  a  poet  and 
an  unusual  sense  of  melody,  where  was  he  lack 
ing  in  what  makes  a  great  poet?  In  power  of 
expression.  He  never  attained,  except  in  a  few 
poems,  that  union  of  sound  and  sense  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  best  poetry.  The  touch  of 
finality  is  not  in  his  words ;  the  subtle  charm  of 
verse  outside  of  the  melody  and  the  meaning  is 
not  his  —  he  failed  to  get  the  last  "  touches  of 
vitalizing  force."  He  did  not,  as  Lowell  said  of 
Keats,  "rediscover  the  delight  and  wonder  that 
lay  enchanted  in  the  dictionary."  He  did  not 
attain  to  "the  perfection  and  the  precision  of 
the  instantaneous  line."  Take  his  poem  "  Remon 
strance,"  for  instance.  It  is  a  strong  utterance 
against  tyranny  and  intolerance  and  bigotry,  hot 
from  his  soul ;  but  the  expression  is  not  worthy 
of  his  feeling.  A  few  lines  of  Lowell's  "  Fable 
for  Critics "  about  freedom  are  better.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  his  attack  on  agnosticism 
in  "Acknowledgment."  "  Corn  "  while  represent 
ing  an  extremely  poetical  situation,  leaves  one 
with  the  feeling  of  incompleteness :  the  ideas  are 
not  adequately  or  felicitously  expressed.  There 
is  melody  in  the  "  Marsh  Song  at  Sunset,"  but  the 
poem  is  not  clear.  Or  take  what  many  consider 


CRITICISM  AND  POETRY  365 

his  masterpiece,  "  Sunrise."  There  is  one  of 
the  most  imaginative  situations  a  poet  could 
have,  —  the  ecstasy  of  the  poet's  soul  as  he  rises 
from  his  bed  to  go  to  the  forest,  the  silence  of 
the  night,  the  mystery  of  the  deep  green  woods, 
the  coming  of  "  my  lord,  the  Sun."  There  is 
nothing  in  American  poetry  that  goes  beyond 
the  sweep  and  range  of  this  conception.  But 
look  at  the  words ;  with  the  exception  of  the 
first  stanza  and  those  that  describe  the  dawn, 
there  is  a  nervousness  of  style,  a  strain  of  ex 
pression.  If  one  compare  even  the  best  parts 
with  the  "  Evening  of  Extraordinary  Splendor 
and  Beauty  "  by  Wordsworth,  he  sees  the  differ 
ence  in  the  art  of  expression.  There  is  in  Words 
worth's  poem  the  romantic  mood,  —  the  same 
uplift  of  soul  in  the  presence  of  the  greater 
phenomena  of  nature,  —  but  there  is  a  classic 
restraint  of  form;  it  is  "emotion  recollected 
in  tranquillity." 

What,  then,  is  the  explanation  of  this  defect 
in  Lanier  ?  Undoubtedly  lack  of  time  to  revise 
his  work  is  one  cause.  Speaking  of  one  of  his 
poems,  he  said,  "  Being  cool  next  day,  I  find 
some  flaws  in  my  poem."  And  again,  "  On  see 
ing  the  poem  in  print,  I  find  it  faulty ;  there  's 
too  much  matter  in  it."  Sickness,  poverty,  and 
hard  work  prevented  him  from  having  that  re 
pose  which  is  the  proper  mood  of  the  artist.  He 


366  SIDNEY   LANIER 

had  to  write  as  long  a  poem  as  "  The  Sym 
phony  "  in  four  days,  the  "  Psalm  of  the  West " 
in  a  few  weeks.  "  Sunrise  "  was  dictated  on  his 
death-bed.  The  revision  of  "  Corn  "  and  of  all 
other  poems  which  I  have  been  able  to  compare 
with  the  first  drafts  shows  conclusively  that  he 
had  the  power  of  improving  his  work.  With 
more  time  he  might  have  achieved  with  all  of  his 
poems  some  of  the  results  attained  by  such  care 
ful  workmen  as  Tennyson  and  Poe. 

But  lack  of  time  for  revision  will  not  explain 
all.  There  were  certain  temperamental  defects 
in  Lanier  as  poet.  There  was  a  lack  of  spon 
taneous  utterance.  Writing  once  of  Swinburne, 
he  used  words  that  characterize  well  one  phase 
of  his  own  work :  "  It  is  always  the  Fourth  of 
July  with  Mr.  Swinburne.  It  is  impossible  in 
reading  this  strained  laborious  matter  not  to  re 
member  that  the  case  of  poetry  is  precisely  that 
where  he  who  conquers,  conquers  without  strain. 
There  was  a  certain  damsel  who  once  came  to 
King  Arthur's  court, '  gert '  (as  sweet  Sir  Thomas 
Malory  hath  it)  '  with  a  sword  for  to  find  a  man 
of  such  virtue  to  draw  it  out  of  the  scabbard.' 
King  Arthur,  to  set  example  to  his  knights,  first 
essayed,  and  pulled  at  it  ^eagerly,  but  the  sword 
would  not  out.  '  Sir,'  said  the  damsel,  '  ye  need 
not  to  pull  half  so  hard,  for  he  that  shall  pull  it 
out  shall  do  it  with  little  might.'  "  This  is  not 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  367 

to  say  that  Lanier  simulated  poetic  expression, 
but  his  words  are  not  inevitable  enough.  He 
often  lacked  simplicity. 

Furthermore,  he  suffered  from  a  tendency  to 
indulge  in  fancies, „"  sucking  sweet  similes  out 
of  the  most  diverse  objects."  He  was  inoculated 
with  the  "  conceit  virus "  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  In  a  letter  already  quoted,  he  pointed 
out  this  defect  to  his  father,  and  he  never  over 
came  it.  He  did  not  restrain  his  luxuriant  imag 
ination.  The  poem  "  Clover  "  is  almost  spoiled 
by  the  conceit  of  the  ox  representing  the 
"  Course-of -things  "  and  trampling  upon  the  souls 
(the  clover-blossoms)  of  the  poets.  "  Sunrise  " 
is  marred  by  the  figure  of  the  bee-hive  from 
which  the  "  star-fed  Bee,  the  build-fire  Bee,  .  .  . 
the  great  Sun-Bee,"  emerges  in  the  morning. 
Such  examples  might  be  easily  multiplied. 

Lanier  was  undoubtedly  hampered,  too,  by  his 
theory  of  verse.  The  very  poem  "  Special  Plead 
ing,"  in  which  he  said  that  he  began  to  work  out 
his  theory,  is  a  failure.  Alliteration,  assonance, 
compound  words,  personifications,  are  greatly 
overused.  Some  of  the  rhymes  are  as  grotesque 
as  Browning's.  Instead  of  the  perfect  union  of 
sound  and  sense,  there  is  often  a  mere  chanting 
of  words. 

It  is  futile  to  deny  these  tendencies  in  Lanier. 
They  vitiate  more  than  half  his  poems,  and  are 


368  SIDNEY   LANIEB 

defects  even  in  some  of  the  best.  Sometimes, 
in  his  very  highest  flight,  he  seems  to  have  been 
winged  by  one  of  these  arrows.  But  it  is  equally 
futile  to  deny  that  he  frequently  rises  above  all 
these  limitations  and  does  work  that  is  absolutely 
unique,  and  original,  and  enduring.  Distinction 
must  be  made,  as  in  the  case  of  every  other  man 
who  has  marked  qualities  of  style,  between  his 
good  work  and  his  bad  work.  He  has  done 
enough  good  work  to  entitle  him  to  a  place 
among  the  genuine  poets  of  America.  No  Ameri 
can  anthology  would  be  complete  that  did  not 
contain  some  dozen  or  more  of  his  poems,  and 
no  study  of  American  poetry  would  be  complete 
that  did  not  take  into  consideration  twice  this 
number.  It  is  too  soon  yet  to  fix  upon  such 
poems,  but  surely  they  may  be  found  among  the 
following:  such  lyrics  as  "An  Evening  Song," 
"  My  Springs,"  "  A  Ballad  of  the  Trees  and  the 
Master,"  "  Betrayal,"  "  Night  and  Day,"  «  The 
Stirrup-Cup,"  and  "  Nirvana ;  "  such  sonnets  as 
"The  Mocking-Bird  "  and  "The  Harlequin  of 
Dreams  ;  "  such  nature  poems  as  "  The  Song  of 
the  Chattahoochee,"  "  The  Waving  of  the  Corn," 
and  "  From  the  Flats ; "  such  poems  of  high 
seriousness  as  "  Individuality,"  "  Opposition," 
"  How  Love  looked  for  Hell,"  and  "  A  Florida 
Sunday ; "  such  a  stirring  ballad  as  "  The  Re 
venge  of  Hamish ; "  the  opening  lines  and  the 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  369 

Columbus  sonnets  of  the  "  Psalm  of  the  West ;  " 
and  the  longer  poems,  "  The  Symphony,"  "  Sun 
rise,"  and  "  The  Marshes  of  Glynn." 

The  first  may  be  quoted  as  an  illustration  of 
Lanier's  lyric  quality.  Those  who  have  heard  it 
sung  to  the  music  of  Mr.  Dudley  Buck  can 
realize  to  some  extent  Lanier's  idea  of  the  union 
of  music  and  poetry :  — 

Look  off,  dear  Love,  across  the  shallow  sands, 
And  mark  yon  meeting  of  the  sun  and  sea, 
How  long  they  kiss  in  sight  of  all  the  lands. 
Ah  !  longer,  longer,  we. 

Now  in  the  sea's  red  vintage  melts  the  sun, 
As  Egypt's  pearl  dissolved  in  rosy  wine, 
And  Cleopatra  night  drinks  all.    'T  is  done, 
Love,  lay  thine  hand  in  mine. 

Come  forth,  sweet  stars,  and  comfort  heaven's  heart ; 

Glimmer,  ye  waves,  round  else  unlighted  sands. 
O  night  !  divorce  our  sun  and  sky  apart, 
Never  our  lips,  our  hands. 

Throughout  his  poems  —  some  of  them  im-\  j 
perfect  enough  as  wholes  —  there  are  lines  that 
come  from  the  innermost  soul  of  poetry  :  — 

Lut  the  air  and  my  heart  and  the  earth  are  a-thrill. 

The  little  green  leaves  would  not  let  me  alone  in  my 
sleep. 

Happy-valley  hopes 
Beyond  the  bend  of  roads. 


370  SIDNEY   LANIER 

I  lie  as  lies  yon  placid  Brandywine, 
Holding  the  hills  and  heavens  in  my  heart 
For  contemplation. 

Sweet  visages  of  all  the  souls  of  time 
Whose  loving  service  to  the  world  has  been 
In  the  artist's  way  expressed. 

A  perfect  life  in  perfect  labor  wrought. 

The  artist's  market  is  the  heart  of  man; 
The  artist's  price,  some  little  good  of  man. 

He  summ'd  the  words  in  song. 

The  whole  sweet  round 

Of  littles  that  large  life  compound  ! 

My  brain  is  beating  like  the  heart  of  Haste. 
Where  an  artist  plays,  the  sky  is  low. 

Thou  'rt  only  a  gray  and  sober  dove, 

But  thine  eye  is  faith  and  thy  wing  is  love. 

Oh,  sweet,  my  pretty  sum  of  history, 

I  leapt  the  breadth  of  Time  in  loving  thee  ! 

Music  is  love  in  search  of  a  word. 

His  song  was  only  living  aloud, 
His  work,  a  singing  with  his  hand  ! 

And  Science  be  known  as  the  sense  making  love  to  the 

All, 

And  Art  be  known  as  the  soul  making  love  to  the  All, 
And  Love  be  known  as  the  marriage  of  man  with  the  All. 


CRITICISM  AND  POETRY  371 

Indeed,  if  one  had  to  rely  upon  one  poem  to 
keep  alive  the  fame  of  Lanier,  he  could  single 
out  "  The  Marshes  of  Glynn  "  with  assurance 
that  there  is  something  so  individual  and  origi 
nal  about  it,  and  that,  at  the  same  time,  there  is 
such  a  roll  and  range  of  verse  in  it,  that  it  will 
surely  live  not  only  in  American  poetry  but  in 
English.  Here  the  imagination  has  taken  the 
place  of  fancy,  the  effort  to  do  great  things  ends 
in  victory,  and  the  melody  of  the  poem  corre 
sponds  to  the  exalted  thought.  It  has  all  the 
strong  points  of  "  Sunrise,"  with  but  few  of  its 
limitations.  There  is  something  of  Whitman's 
virile  imagination  and  Emerson's  high  spiritual-  // 
ity  combined  with  the  haunting  melody  of  Poe's 
best  work.  Written  in  1878,  when  Lanier  was 
in  the  full  exercise  of  all  his  powers,  it  is  the 
best  expression  of  his  genius  and  one  of  the  few 
great  American  poems. 

The  background  of  the  poem  —  as  of  "  Sun 
rise  "  —  is  the  forest,  the  coast  and  the  marshes 
near  Brunswick,  Georgia.  Early  in  life  Lanier 
had  been  thrilled  by  this  wonderful  natural 
scenery,  and  later  visits  had  the  more  power 
fully  impressed  his  imagination.  He  is  the  poet  \f 
of  the  marshes  as  surely  as  Bryant  is  of  the 
forests,  or  Wordsworth  of  the  mountains. 

The  poet  represents  himself  as  having  spent 
the  day  in  the  forest  and  coming  at  sunset  into 


372  SIDNEY   LANIER 

full  view  of  the  length  and  the  breadth  and  the 
sweep  of  the  marshes.  The  glooms  of  the  live- 
oaks  and  the  emerald  twilights  of  the  "  dim 
sweet  woods,  of  the  dear  dark  woods,"  have  been 
as  a  refuge  from  the  riotous  noon-day  sun.  More 
than  that,  in  the  wildwood  privacies  and  closets 
of  lone  desire  he  has  known  the  passionate  plea 
sure  of  prayer  and  the  joy  of  elevated  thought. 
His  spirit  is  grown  to  a  lordly  great  compass 
within,  —  he  is  ready  for  what  Wordsworth  calls 
a  "  god-like  hour :  "  — 

But  now  when  the  noon  is  no  more,  and  riot  is  rest, 
And  the  sun  is  a-wait  at  the  ponderous  gate  of  the  West, 
And  the  slant   yellow  beam  down   the  wood-aisle   doth 

seem 

Like  a  lane  into  heaven  that  leads  from  a  dream,  — 
Ay,  now,  when  my  soul  all  day  hath  drunken  the  soul  of 

the  oak 
And  my  heart  is  at  ease  from  men,  and  the  wearisome 

sound  of  the  stroke 

Of  the  scythe  of  time  and  the  trowel  of  trade  is  low, 
And  belief  overmasters  doubt,  and  I  know  that  I  know, 
And   my  spirit  is   grown  to  a  lordly  great   compass 

within, 
That  the  length  and  the  breadth  and  the  sweep  of  the 

marshes  of  Glynn 
Will  work  me  no  fear  like  the  fear  they  have  wrought 

me  of  yore 
When  length  was  fatigue,  and  when  breadth  was  but 

bitterness  sore, 
And  when  terror  and  shrinking  and  dreary  unnamable 

pain 
Drew  over  me  out  of  the  merciless  miles  of  the  plain,  — 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  373 

Oh,  now,  unafraid,  I  am  fain  to  face 

The  vast  sweet  visage  of  space. 
To  the  edge  of  the  wood  I  am  drawn,  I  am  drawn, 
Where  the  gray  beach  glimmering  runs,  as  a  belt  of  the 

dawn, 

For  a  mete  and  a  mark 
To  the  forest-dark:  — 

So: 

Affable  live-oak,  leaning  low,  — 
Thus  —  with  your  favor  —  soft,  with  a  reverent  hand 
(Not  lightly  touching  your  person,  Lord  of  the  land  !) 
Bending  your  beauty  aside,  with  a  step  I  stand 
On  the  firm-packed  sand, 

Free 
By  a  world  of  marsh  that  borders  a  world  of  sea. 

And  what  if  behind  me  to  westward  the  wall  of  the  woods 

stands  high  ? 
The  world  lies  east:  how  ample,  the  marsh  and  the  sea 

and  the  sky  ! 
A  league  and  a  league  of  marsh-grass,  waist-high,  broad 

in  the  blade, 
Green,  and  all  of  a  height,  and  unflecked  with  a  light  or 

a  shade, 

Stretch  leisurely  off,  in  a  pleasant  plain, 
To  the  terminal  blue  of  the  main. 

Oh,  what  is  abroad  in  the  marsh  and  the  terminal  sea  ? 

Somehow  my  soul  seems  suddenly  free 
From  the  weighing  of  fate  and  the  sad  discussion  of  sin, 
By  the  length  and  the  breadth  and  the  sweep  of   the 
marshes  of  Glynn. 


As  the  marsh-hen  secretly  builds  on  the  watery  sod, 
Behold  I  will  build  me  a  nest  on  the  greatness  of  God: 


374  SIDNEY   LANIER 

I  will  fly  in  the  greatness  of  God  as  the  marsh-hen  flies 
In  the  freedom  that  fills  all  the  space  'twixt  the  marsh 

and  the  skies: 

By  so  many  roots  as  the  marsh-grass  sends  in  the  sod 
I  will  heartily  lay  me  a-hold  on  the  greatness  of  God: 
Oh,  like  to  the  greatness  of  God  is  the  greatness  within 
The  range  of  the  marshes,  the  liberal  marshes  of  Glynn. 

And  the  sea  lends  large,  as   the  marsh:  lo,  out  of  his 

plenty  the  sea 

Pours  fast:  full  soon  the  time  of  the  flood-tide  must  be: 
Look  how  the  grace  of  the  sea  doth  go 
About  and  about  through  the  intricate  channels  that  flow 
Here  and  there, 

Everywhere, 
Till  his  waters  have  flooded  the  uttermost  creeks  and  the 

low-lying  lanes, 

And  the  marsh  is  meshed  with  a  million  veins, 
That  like  as  with  rosy  and  silvery  essences  flow 
In  the  rose-and-silver  evening  glow. 

Farewell,  my  lord  Sun  ! 

The  creeks  overflow:  a  thousand  rivulets  run 
'Twixt  the  roots  of  the  sod;  the  blades  of  the  marsh-grass 

stir; 

Passeth  a  hurrying  sound  of  wings  that  westward  whirr; 
Passeth,  and  all  is  still;  and  the  currents  cease  to  run; 
And  the  sea  and  the  marsh  are  one. 

How  still  the  plains  of  the  waters  be  ! 

The  tide  is  in  his  ecstasy. 

The  tide  is  at  his  highest  height: 

And  it  is  night. 

And  now  from  the  Vast  of  the  Lord  will  the  waters  of 

sleep 

Roll  in  on  the  souls  of  men, 
But  who  will  reveal  to  our  waking  ken 


CRITICISM   AND   POETRY  375 

The  forms  that  swim  and  the  shapes  that  creep 

Under  the  waters  of  sleep  ? 
And  I  would  I  could  know  what  swimmeth  below  when 

the  tide  comes  in 
On  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  the  marvelous  marshes 

of  Glynn. 

In  the  light  of  such  a  poem  Lanier's  poetry 
and  his  life  take  on  a  new  significance.  The 
struggles  through  which  he  passed  and  the  vic 
tory  he  achieved  are  summed  up  in  a  passage 
which  may  well  be  the  last  word  of  this  bio 
graphy.  For  Sidney  Lanier  was 

The  catholic  man  who  hath  mightily  won 
God  out  of  knowledge  and  good  out  of  infinite  pain 
And  sight  out  of  blindness  and  purity  out  of  a  stain. 


INDEX 


Adams,  Herbert  B.,  210,  236. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  28, 312. 

Alabama,  University  of,  68; 
Lanier  seeks  position  in,  91. 

Aldhelm,  216. 

Alclrich,  T.  B.,  75,  287. 

Alleghany  Springs,  Virginia, 
Lanier's  description  of,  111- 
113. 

Allston  Art  Association,  230. 

America,  future  of  music  in, 
145-147. 

Anderson,  Clifford,  18,  100. 

Arber,  Edward,  256. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  211,  335-336. 

Atlanta  "  Constitution,"  277, 
293. 

Atlanta  University,  270. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,"  on  South 
ern  Literature,  286,  287 ;  353. 

Bach,  Sebastian,  146. 

Baltimore,  182, 183, 185,  195, 199- 
201,  203,  206,  210,  233,  237,  245, 
264,280;  climate  of,  124;  La- 
nier's  first  visit  to,  130 ;  his 
popularity  in,  135 ;  musicians 
in,  135 ;  influence  of  Lanier  on, 
136,  230 ;  poems  written  there, 
173;  Druid  Hill  Park,  225; 
change  in  society,  230. 

Baskervill,  W.  M.,  "Southern 
Writers,"  quoted,  32,  60-62, 
168,  288-289. 

Beethoven,  135, 140, 144, 145, 147, 
172,  200. 

"  Beowulf,"  Lanier's  interpreta 
tion  Of,  205,  213-218. 


Bird,  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  Lanier 

lectures  at  home  of,  205,  233. 
Bismarck,  200. 
Blaine,  James  G.,  265,  266. 
Blake,  William,  302. 
Blanc,   Mme.     (Th.    Bentzon), 

estimate  of  Lanier,  in  "Kevue 

des    Deux   Mondes,"   2,  306- 

307. 
Bleckley,  Judge  Logan  E.,  153, 

154;   Lanier's   letters   to,  95, 

153,  157-159,  163,  291. 
Bledsoe,  Alfred  T.,  280,  282. 
Boston,  163,  185;  Lanier's  visit 

to,  190-191. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  251. 
Browne,    William    Hand,    280, 

281. 
Browning,   Elizabeth    Barrett, 

56. 
Browning,  Robert,  302,  318,  341, 

342,    347,    358,     367;    Lanier's 

opinion  of,  "  The    King   and 

the  Book,"  110-111. 
Brunetiere,  211. 
Brunswick,  Ga.,  Lanier's  visits 

to  and  impressions  of,  99,  111, 

152,  195,  371. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  183, 192, 

371. 
Buck,    Dudley,    166,     167,    369; 

letters  of  Lanier  to,  168,  169, 

178. 

Buddha,  Lanier's  characteriza 
tion  of,  347. 
Burns,  Robert,  34, 186. 
Burton,  Robert,  34,  251. 
Byron,  Lord,  38,  358. 


378 


INDEX 


Cable,  George  W.,  45,  284,  285, 
287,  288 ;  Lanier's  opinion  of, 
294. 

Caedmon,  216,  256. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  272,  288. 

Callaway,  "  Select  Poems  of 
Lanier,"  159,  note. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  32,  36,  346,  354 ; 
influence  of,  on  Lanier,  34. 

Centennial  Exposition,  Lanier's 
relation  to,  166-181. 

Century  Club,  Lanier's  visit  to, 
192. 

"  Century  Magazine,"  the,  285. 

Chadd's  Ford,  Pa.,  Lanier's  stay 
in,  194, 196. 

Charles  I,  patron  of  Nicholas 
Lanier,  11. 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  34. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  109,  193,  202, 
203,  215,  216,  238,  256 ;  Lanier's 
comparison  of,  with  William 
Morris,  348-350. 

Child,  Francis  J.,  237,  238,  240, 
261. 

Chopin,  74, 136,  140,  150. 

Civil  War,  Lanier's  interpreta 
tion  of  the  issues  of,  44-47; 
effect  of,  on  the  South,  45 ;  Con 
federate  soldiers  in,  105, 106. 

Clarke,  Charles  Heber,  183,  302. 

Clay,  Mrs.  Clement  C.,  friend 
ship  for  Lanier,  53,  54 ;  letter 
from  Lanier  to,  53. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  4,  34, 
56,  342;  musical  qualities  of 
verse,  357. 

Cook,  Albert  S.,  240. 

Cooke,  John  Esten,  282,  285. 

Cowley,  Abraham,  56. 

Craddock,  Charles  Egbert  (Miss 
Mary  N.  Murfree)  37,  83,  287, 
288. 

"  Crescent  Monthly,"  the,  280. 

Curry,  J.  L.  M.,  278,  279. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  53, 159, 182, 
183 ;  letters  of  Lanier  to,  184- 


191,301;  Lanier  asked  to  write 
the  life  of,  194;  Lanier  visits 
in  Boston,  190. 

Damrosch,  Leopold,  130, 133. 

Dante,  212,  238,  345. 

Darwin,  Charles,  226,  241 ;  La 
nier's  reverence  for,  313-314. 

Davidson,  J.  Wood,  "Living 
Writers  of  the  South,"  88,  282. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  63,  73,  282 ; 
Lanier's  opinion  of  his  im 
prisonment,  89. 

"  DeBow's  Review,"  280. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  345. 

Dobbin,  Mrs.  Isabel  L.,  letter  of 
Lanier  to,  325-326. 

Dobell,  Sydney,  188. 

Donne,  John,  Lanier  compares 
himself  to,  56. 

Douglas,  Gavin,  346. 

Drummond,  William,  of  Haw- 
thornden,  Lanier's  opinion  of, 
164,  346. 

Eggleston,    George   Gary,   286, 

292 ;  Lanier's  letter  to,  292. 
Eliot,  President  Charles  W.,  144, 

233. 

Eliot,  George,  298,  329,  346. 
Elizabethan  literature,  Lanier's 

interest  in,  109,  203-206,  218- 

220,  249. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  36,  247, 

251, 286,  312,  358,  363,  371. 

Falk-Auerbach,  Mme.,  135. 

Fielding,  Henry,  Lanier's  opin 
ion  of,  346. 

Florida,  Lanier's  visits  to,  165, 
187,  189,  195,  196;  description 
of  scenery,  165. 

Flotow,  Stradella  (music),  La 
nier's  interpretation  of,  141. 

French,  Major-General  Samuel 
G.,  reminiscences  of  Lanier, 
49. 


INDEX 


379 


Froissart,  10,  25, 109, 118. 
Furnivall,  F.  J.,  240,  246,  247. 

Georgia,  democracy  in,  before 
the  war,  20;  secession,  42; 
losses  in  war,  68  ;  agricultural 
condition  in,  156, 268  ;  progress 
in,  269 ;  leadership  in  the  New 
South,  276;  Lanier's  enjoy 
ment  of  the  life  as  portrayed 
in  fiction,  20,  296. 

German  literature,  Lanier's 
early  reading  of,  34 ;  during 
the  war,  56,  58 ;  83,  96,  97,  232, 
299,  345.  See  Goethe,  Heine, 
Herder,  Schiller,  Uhland. 

German  music,  120-122 ;  defects 
of,  148-150.  See  Beethoven, 
Wagner. 

German  university,  Lanier  plans 
to  go  to,  39,  40,  91,  100. 

Gildersleeve,  Basil  L.,  39, 56, 210, 
236,  281,  282 ;  reminiscences  of 
Lanier,  239,  302. 

Gilman,  Daniel  Coit,  president 
of  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
234,  235  ;  first  interview  with 
Lanier,  231 ;  what  his  friend 
ship  meant  to  Lanier,  233; 
reminiscences  of  Lanier,  6, 
173-175,  331,  337,  353;  his  esti 
mate  of  Lanier's  work  at 
Johns  Hopkins,  250;  letters 
of  Lanier  to,  232,  250,  252-257, 
337. 

Godkin,  E.  L.,  on  condition  of 
South  after  the  war,  68 ;  on 
reconstruction,  90;  national 
spirit  of,  179. 

Goethe,  Lanier  attends  celebra 
tion  of  in  New  York,  192  ;  312, 
345. 

Gordon,  John  B.,277,  278. 

Grady,  Henry,  96, 276,  277. 

Griffin,  Bartholomew,  Lanier's 
opinion  of,  346. 

Grosart,  Alexander  B.,203,  240. 


iimmere,  Francis  B.,  "Begin 
nings  of  Poetry,"  355. 

Hamerik,  Asger,  141 ;  first  meet 
ing  with  Lanier,  130  ;  account 
of  Lanier's  playing,  131-133; 
influence  on  Lanier,  134. 

"  Harper's  Magazine,"  285,  286, 
324. 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  68,  288 ; 
quoted,  123,  277,  284,  356;  La 
nier's  opinion  of,  293, 294. 

Harte,  Bret,  influence  on  South 
ern  writers,  283, 287. 

Hartman,  Emil,  Lanier's  playing 
of,  132. 

Hankins,  V.  W.,  reminiscences 
of  Lanier,  55. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  107. 

Haygood,  Atticus  G.,  "  Our  Bro 
ther  in  Black,"  276-278. 

Hayne,  Paul  Hamilton,  45,  68, 
182,  202,  283,  288,  289-293,  321, 
340 ;  his  life  after  the  war,  106 ; 
his  encouragement  of  Lanier, 
107,  108 ;  letters  of  Lanier  to, 
110,  111,  164,  290,  321. 

Hazlitt,  William,  212,  351. 

Heidelberg  University,  Lanier 
plans  to  go  to,  39-41. 

Heine,  Lanier  reads  and  trans 
lates,  56,  58. 

Helmholtz,  influence  of  his  in 
vestigations  on  Lanier,  138. 

Herder,  Lanier  translates,  58. 

Herrick,  Mrs.  Sophie  Bledsoe, 
reminiscences  of  Lanier,  314- 
315. 

Higginson,  Thomas Wentworth, 
363. 

Hill,  Walter  B.,  285;  estimate 
of  Lanier  as  lawyer,  101- 
103. 

Hill,  Benjamin  H.,  276,  277. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  102, 
173,  337,  358. 

Hovey,  Richard,  opinion  of  the 


380 


INDEX 


"Science  of  English  Verse,' 

353. 
Howells,  William  Dean,  286, 287 

340. 

Huguenots,   the,    early   settle 
ment,  in  Virginia,  12. 
"  Hunt  of  Henry  IV.,"  the,  La- 

nier's  description  of,  142. 
Hurd  and  Houghton,  publish. 

ers  of  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  78. 
Huxley,    Thomas    Henry,   313, 

316. 

"  Independent,"  the,  publication 
of  Lanier's  poems,  286.  See 
Ward. 

Jackson,  Stonewall,  Lanier's 
opinion  of,  104. 

Johns  Hopkins  University,  7, 
144,  203,  281,  313,  333,  336,  337  ; 
Lanier  appointed  lecturer  in, 
233,  234;  organization  and 
ideals  of,  234-238 ;  first  faculty, 
236 ;  Lanier's  influence  on,  250, 
258,  259 ;  his  conception  of  his 
work  in,  252-258 ;  his  place  in 
the  history  of,  262 ;  memorial 
exercises  held  in  his  honor, 
336.  • 

Johnston,  Richard  Malcolm,  6, 
68,210,  281,  282,  285;  Lanier's 
influence  on,  295 ;  letters  from 
Lanier,  295,  322. 

Keats,  John,  3,  34,  56,  156,  251, 
298,  332, 358,  364. 

Kennedy,  John  P.,  visits  Macon, 
22. 

Keyser,  Ephraim,  bust  of  Lanier 
by,  306. 

Kirk,  John  Foster,  182,302;  La 
nier's  letters  to,  204,  316. 

Kirk,  Miss  Sophie,  reminis 
cences  of  Lanier,  302-304. 

Lamar,  L.  Q.  C.,  22,  96, 180,  265. 


Lamb,  Charles,  4,  212,  251, 357. 

"  Land  we  Love,"  the,  280. 

Lane,  Charles  W.,  27. 

Langland,  William,  "  Piers 
Plowman,"  109,  347. 

Lanier  and  Anderson,  Lanier 
works  in  the  firm  of,  100-102, 
114. 

Lanier,  Charles,  presents  bust 
of  Lanier  to  Johns  Hopkins, 
14,  337,  338. 

Lanier,  Charles  Day  (son),  100, 
133,  307,  339. 

Lanier,  Clifford  (brother),  7,  17, 
18,  38,  53,  54,  55,  63,  73-75,  157, 
331, 335 ;  reminiscences,  18, 23, 
24 ;  Lanier's  letters  to,  99, 171, 
172,231,  245,  246,  265-267. 

Lanier,  Gertrude  (sister),  18, 63; 
letters  of  Lanier  to,  73, 117. 

Lanier,  Henry  W.  (son),  200,  339, 

Lanier,  James  F.D.,  10,  13;  as 
sists  Sidney  Lanier  with 
"  Tiger  Lilies,"  78,  79. 

Lanier,  Jerome,  10. 

Lanier,  Sir  John,  12. 

Lanier,  Kate,  79,  80. 

Lanier,  Mary  Day,  52,  53,  152, 
195, 199,  323-325, 330 ;  marriage, 
97-98;  account  of  Lanier's 
death,  335;  training  of  her 
children,  338 ;  letters  of  Lanier 
to,  112-114,  130,  141;  142,  143, 
149-151,  167,  308. 

Lanier,  Mary  J.  (mother),  9, 16, 
17, 63. 

Lanier,  Nicholas,  10, 11. 

Lanier,  Robert  Sampson  (fa 
ther),  9, 14-16, 30 ;  letters  from 
Lanier  to,  5,  30,  31,  56,  67,  81, 
94,  96,  97,  118,  124. 

Lanier,  Robert  Sampson  (son), 
322-324,  332,  339. 

Lanier,  Sidney  (son),  200,  338. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  born  in  Macon, 
Georgia,  1, 16 ;  ancestry,  i-u; ; 
influence  of  early  home  life, 


INDEX 


381 


16-19;  life  in  Macon,  19-23; 
early  schools,  23;  fondness 
for  music  and  books,  24,  25; 
at  Oglethorpe  University,  26- 
41;  influence  of  Dr.  Woodrow, 
28-30 ;  of  comrades,  32 ;  vaca 
tion  at  Montvale  Springs, 
Terra.,  35-37;  tutor  in  Greek,  38; 
plans  to  go  to  Heidelberg,  39 ; 
catches  war  fever  and  joins 
Macon  Volunteers,  42-48 ;  at 
Norfolk,  48  ;  in  battles  around 
Richmond,  48,  49;  at  Peters 
burg,  49 ;  vacation  in  Macon, 
52,  53;  as  scout  at  Fort  Boy- 
kin  reads  German  poetry  and 
begins  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  54-56, 
84 ;  captured  on  blockade-run 
ner  at  Wilmington,  N.  C.,  57 ; 
and  taken  to  Point  Lookout 
Prison,  58-60;  rescue  from 
death,  60;  after  illness-in  Ma 
con,  goes  to  Point  Clear  on 
Mobile  Bay,  64 ;  hotel  clerk  at 
Exchange  Hotel,  Montgom 
ery,  Alabama,  64-78 ;  resumes 
literary  work,  74;  goes  to 
New  York  with  "Tiger  Lil 
ies,"  78;  teaches  school  at 
Prattville,  Alabama,  91-97 ; 
suffers  from  reconstruction 
governments,  91-95;  marriage, 
93;  practices  law  at  Macon, 
99 ;  delivers  Confederate 
Memorial  address,  103;  goes 
to  Alleghany  Springs,  Virgi 
nia,  112,  to  New  York,  114,  to 
San  Antonio,  117 ;  resolves  to 
give  the  remainder  of  his  life 
to  music  and  poetry,  120-126 ; 
goes  to  New  York  to  study 
music,  129 ;  flrst  flute  in  Pea- 
body  Orchestra  in  Baltimore, 
130;  popularity  in  Baltimore, 
135;  on  a  visit  to  Georgia 
writes  "Corn,"  153;  at  work 
on  other  poems,  and  books, 


161-165;  appointed  to  write 
a  cantata  for  the  opening 
of  Centennial  Exposition  in 
Philadelphia,  166;  publishes 
first  volume  of  poems,  181; 
meets  wider  circle  of  literary 
men  and  women,  181 ;  visit  to 
Boston,  190;  attends  Century 
Club  and  Goethe  celebration, 
192 ;  moves  family  to  Chadd's 
Ford,  Pa.,  194 ;  goes  to  Florida 
for  health,  195,  196;  seeks 
in  vain  for  government 
position  in  Washington,  198, 
199 ;  settles  with  family  in 
Baltimore,  200 ;  at  work  in 
Peabody  Library  on  English 
literature,  202;  lectures  at 
the  Peabody  Institute,  206- 
210;  appointed  lecturer  at 
Johns  Hopkins  University, 
233;  writes  article  on  the 
"  New  South,"  264 ;  last  ill 
ness  begins,  321;  birth  of 
fourth  son  at  West  Chester, 
Pa.,  322;  lectures  at  Johns 
Hopkins,  328-330;  goes  to 
New  York,  330 ;  to  Asheville, 
N.  C.,  331 ;  death,  335 ;  burial 
in  Baltimore,  336;  memorial 
exercises  at  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  337-338. 
Characteristics :  physical  ap 
pearance,  190  (Lowell),  193 
(Stedman),  300  (Wysham), 
301  (Gilman  ;  humor,  21,  32, 
33,  79,  80,  100,  200,  204,  310, 
311;  buoyancy  of  spirit, 
4-7,  96,  322,  323  ;  lack  of  Bo- 
hemianism,  18,  301,  302,  307: 
knightliness  and  chivalry,  54, 
158,  309;  capacity  for  hard 
work,  129-130,  134,  163,187,211, 
238 ;  capacity  for  friendship, 
302-307  ;  fondness  for  children, 
79,  80,  303,  307 ;  love  of  nature, 
18,  19,  37,  112-114,  224-226 ;  pu- 


382 


INDEX 


rity  of  life,  59,  60,  162 ;  rever 
ence  for  science,  28,  29,  138, 
232,  312-317,  333,  334  (see  also 
Darwin,  Oilman,  Kirk) ;  enthu 
siasm  for  literature,  32-34, 108- 
110,  205,  211,  212,  350  (see  also 
Elizabethan  poetry  and  old 
English) ;  as  a  scholar,  7,  34, 
238-250;  as  teacher,  258-260; 
as  critic,  344-366 ;  as  poet,  360- 
375 ;  as  musician,  24,  31,  32, 38, 
55,  58,  59,  74,  86,  115-117,  120- 
123,  chapter  vi ;  his1  national 
spirit,  175-181 ;  his  religious 
faith,  6,  17,  22,  23,  27, 28, 87, 145, 
317-319,  326 ;  inheritor  of  un 
fulfilled  renown,  3,  341,  342. 
Works:  A  Birthday  Song,  76; 
A  Florida  Ghost,  310 ;  A  Flor 
ida  Sunday,  197,  368 ;  Acknow 
ledgment,  364;  An  Evening 
Song,  197,  368,  369  (quoted); 
Baby  Charley,  100,  307 ;  Ballad 
of  Trees  and  Master  (quoted), 
318,  368;  Barnacles,  76;  Be 
trayal,  368 ;  Bob,  307  ;  Boy's 
Froissart,  The,  326;  Boy's 
King  Arthur, The,  109, 326-328 ; 
Boy's  Mabinogion,  The,  326, 
332;  Boy's  Percy,  The,  326; 
Cantata,  the  Centennial,  166- 
176,  291 ;  Clover,  360,  367,  369, 
370 ;  Confederate  Memorial 
Address,  103-106,  344;  Corn, 
153-157,  181,  183,  268,  364,  366  ; 
Crystal,  The,  318,  347,  370; 
English  Novel,  The,  294,  314, 
315,  322,  328-330,  344,  351,  352, 
360;  Florida,  36  (note),  164- 
166, 187 ;  From  Bacon  to  Bee 
thoven,  140,  344;  From  the 
Flats,  197, 368, 369 ;  Hard  Times 
in  Elfland,  307 ;  Harlequin  of 
Dreams,  The,  368 ;  How  Love 
looked  for  Hell,  368;  In  Ab 
sence,  307;  In  the  Foam,  76 
(note);  India,  Sketches  of,  163 ; 


Individuality,  360,  368;  Jac- 
querie,The,  38, 101, 118, 158, 159; 
Laughter  in  the  Senate,  76 
(note),  92,  93  (quoted) ;  Laus 
Mariae,  307;  Legend  of  St. 
Leonor,  The,  315 ;  Life  and 
Song,  76,  370 ;  Marsh  Song 
at  Sunset,  364;  Marshes  of 
Glynn,  The,  3,  320,  322,  324, 
363, 370-375;  Mazzini  on  Music, 
145-147;  Mocking -Bird,  The, 
197,  368;  Modern  Orchestra, 
The,  140;  Music  and  Poetry, 
172,  217;  My  Springs,  97.  98, 
307,  368;  Nature -Metaphors, 
96 ;  New  South,  The,  157,  264- 
272,  344 ;  Night  and  Day,  368  ; 
Nirvana,  108,368 ;  Ode  to  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  The,  230, 
234,  236,  238 ;  Opposition,  128, 
368 ;  Orchestra  of  To-day,  344 ; 
Power  of  Prayer,  The,  185, 
186 ;  Psalm  of  the  West,  The, 
176-178, 181,'360, 366, 369 ;  Raven 
Days,  93 ;  Remonstrance,  364 ; 
Retrospects  and  Prospects 
(essay),  19,  70-72,  94,  96,  344  ; 
Retrospects  and  Prospects 
(book),  103-106,  117-122,  264- 
272 ;  Revenge  of  Hamish,  The, 
368;  San  Antonio  de  Bexar, 
117-122,  344;  Science  of  Eng 
lish  Verse,  The,  3,  239, 249, 320, 
329,  337,  352-359;  Shakspere 
and  His  Forerunners,  98,  210- 
228,  243-245,  351,  352 ;  Song  of 
the  Chattahoochee,  The,  197, 
368;  Special  Pleading,  367; 
Steel  in  Soft  Hands,  93 ;  Stir 
rup-Cup,  The,  197,  368 ;  Sun 
rise,  322,  336, 363, 365-367 ;  Sym 
phony,  The,  158-163,  181,  185, 
187,  368  ;  Tampa  Robins,  197 ; 
Tiger  Lilies,  35-37,  43,  44,  55, 
57,  58,  72,  74,  78,  80-89,  143, 144, 
312,  344 ;  Tyranny,  76,  93 ;  Un 
der  the  Cedarcroft  Chestnut, 


INDEX 


383 


197 ;  Waving  of  the  Corn,  197, 
368. 

Lanier,  Sterling  (grandfather), 
14,21,35,67. 

Lanier,  Thomas,  12, 13. 

Le  Conte,  Joseph,  21,  96,  241, 
282. 

Lee?  Robert  E.,  72,  90,  103,  150, 
278,  282;  Lanier's  description 
of,  at  Petersburg,  49-52;  La 
nier's  tribute  to,  in  Confeder 
ate  Memorial  Address,  104. 

Lessing,  56. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  89,  90,  95, 
275. 

"  Lippincott's  Magazine,"  41 
(note),  65  (note),  155,  163,  176, 
183,  302. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  Lanier's 
visit  to,  190 ;  Lanier  compared 
with,  39,  86,  144,  212,  261,  286, 
340,  358. 

Lowell,  James  Kussell,  visit  of 
Lanier  to  and  characterization 
of  Lanier  by,  190;  compared 
with  Lanier,  144,  179,  181, 190, 
211,  212,  237,  238,  261,  313,  337, 
340,  344,  345,  364  ;  referred  to, 
286,  347,  348. 

Lucretius,  Lanier's  interest  in, 
96. 

Macaulay,  12,  312. 

Machen,  Mrs.  Arthur  W.,  re 
miniscences  of  Lanier,  228- 
229. 

Macon,  Ga.,  92,  115,  124,  156,  162, 
195;  natural  beauty  and  cli 
mate,  19;  life  in,  19-24;  public 
spirit,  20 ;  slavery  in,  20  (note) ; 
excitement  at  outbreak  of 
war,  42, 43 ;  Volunteers,  47,  48 ; 
in  1863,  52 ;  after  the  war,  63 ; 
cemetery,  103. 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  109,  366. 

Mark  Twain,  influence  on  South 
ern  writers,  283. 


Marlowe,  223. 

Mazzini,  "  Essay  on  Music," 
Lanier's  opinion  of,  147. 

Michelet,  History  of  France, 
118. 

Milledgeville,  Ga.,  26, 42,  43. 

Montgomery,  Ala.,  Lanier  set 
tles  in,  64,  73 ;  life  there  after 
the  war,  65-66 ;  Lanier  leaves, 
78. 

Milton,  John,  127,  162,  357,359, 
363. 

More,  Paul  Elmer,  354  (note), 
356. 

Morgan,  Senator  John  P.,  180, 
265. 

Morris,  William,  Lanier's  opin 
ion  of,  348-350. 

Mozart,  140. 

Music  in  America,  future  of, 
145-147. 

Negro,  the,  progress  of  race 
after  the  war,  270,  271 :  effect 
of  reconstruction  on,  274,  275 ; 
the  liberal  sentiment  of  the 
South  in  regard  to,  270,  278. 

Newell,  T.  F.,  reminiscences  of 
Lanier,  32-34. 

New  Shakespeare  Society,  The, 
220,  242,  246,  247. 

New  York  city,  153, 163, 183, 187, 
340;  Lanier's  flrst  visit  to,  in 
1867,  78 ;  later  visits,  114-117 ; 
concerts  at  Central  Park,  116 ; 
Lanier  goes  to  in  1873, 129. 

North  Carolina,  Lanier's  ances 
tors  live  in,  14;  Lanier  at 
Wilmington,  48,  57;  dies  in 
the  mountains  of,  334. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  237,  238*. 

Northrup,  Milton  H.,  reminis 
cences  of  Lanier,  39-41;  letters 
of  Lanier  to,  64,  66,  88,  91,  100. 

Oglethorpe  University,  its  his 
tory,  faculty,  and  students, 
26-30;  faculty  and  students 


384 


INDEX 


go  to  war,  47 ;  closes  after 
the  war,  68 ;  Lanier's  view  of, 
126. 

Old  English,  Lanier's  idea  of 
the  study  of,  213-218,  243, 
244. 

Olmsted,  Frederick  Law,  118. 

Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  285, 288. 

Park,  John,  reminiscences  of 
Lanier,  205. 

Payne,  William  Morton,  opin 
ion  of  Lanier  as  critic,  344. 

Peabody,  George,  202,  203,  230. 

Peabody  Institute,  130, 139,  206, 
210,  229,  233,  337. 

Peabody  Library,  7, 10, 138,  236, 
238;  its  value  as  a  research 
library  and  its  influence  on 
Lanier,  202-205. 

Peabody  Orchestra,  135, 141, 152, 
173,  200,  204. 

Peacock,  Gibson,  159,  165,  168, 
182,  186;  his  great  kindness 
to  Lanier,  195 ;  letters  from 
Lanier  to,  195,  198,  200,  206, 
250. 

Peacock,  Mrs.  Gibson,  182,  201. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  account  of  the 
music-loving  Laniers,  11. 

Philadelphia,  163,  182,  186,  195, 
208,  209. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  2,  3, 173, 281, 
292,  311,  313,  336,  340,  342,  344, 
357,  358,  359,  363,  371. 

Point  Lookout,  Md.,  Lanier  con 
fined  in  prison  at,  58-59. 

Pope,  Alexander,  Lanier's  opin 
ion  of,  346, 

Pratt,  Waldo  S.,  reminiscences 
of  Lanier  as  a  teacher,  7,  258- 
260;  account  of  Lanier's  last 
visit  to  New  York,  330. 

Prattville,  Ala.,  Lanier  teaches 
school  at,  91 ;  condition  of 
during  reconstruction,  94. 

Preston,  Margaret  J.,  281,  285. 

Price,  Thomas  R.,  39, 261,  281. 


Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  Lanier's 
opinion  of,  188,  218. 

Randall,  J.  R.,  "  Maryland,  My 
Maryland,"  44, 173;  293. 

Rhodes.  James  Ford,  History 
of  the  United  States,  68 
(note). 

Richter,  34,  36. 

"Round  Table,  The,"  75;  influ 
ence  on  Lanier  and  his  con 
tributions  thereto,  75-78;  re 
view  of  "Tiger  Lilies,"  80. 

Ruskin,  John,  160,  311. 

Russell,  Irwin,  285. 

San  Antonio,  Texas,  Lanier's 
visit  to  and  essay  on,  5,  117- 
122. 

Schelling,  56. 

Schiller,  56. 

Schumann,  Robert,  24,  140  ;  La 
nier's  estimate  of  his  charac 
ter  and  his  music,  148-151. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  16,  24,  298. 

"  Scott's  Monthly,"  280. 

Scribner,  Charles,  letters  of  La 
nier  to,  239.  326-328. 

"  Scribner's  Monthly,"  186,  268, 
284,  285,  295. 

Shakespeare,  109,  127,  150,  193, 
355,  318 ;  Lanier's  lectures  on, 
206-210, 220-229 ;  Lanier's  view 
of  metrical  tests  as  applied 
to  Shakespeare,  221,  222,  243  ; 
the  moral  height  of,  as  com 
pared  with  other  Elizabethan 
dramatists,  223-224 ;  the  value 
of  studying  him  as  a  whole, 
246-248. 

Shelley,  3,  34,  50,  318,  351 ;  La 
nier's  characterization  of,  348. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  218,  293, 309, 
351. 

Sill,  Edward  Rowland,  78 
(note) ;  opinion  of  Lanier's 
"  Science  of  English  Verse," 
353. 


INDEX 


385 


Simms,  William  Gilmore,  68,  78 
(note),  107,  282,  283. 

South,  The,  Lanier's  inherit 
ance  from  the,  8,  91, 126,  297  ; 
what  he  means  to  the,  8,  298- 
299 ;  denominational  colleges 
in,  26, 27 ;  Lanier's  view  of  the 
social  life  of  the  Old  South, 
35,  36 ;  war  fever  in,  43-47 ; 
effect  of  war  on,  45,  65-73 ;  re 
construction  in, 89-96,  113,274, 
275;  in  1873,  123;  in  1874, 
156 ;  in  1885,  279 ;  Lanier's  in 
terest  in,  264-267 ;  the  conser 
vative  leader  in,  272-275;  the 
progressive  leader  in,  275-279 ; 
literature  in,  279-291 ;  Lanier's 
relation  to  Southern  literature, 
291-297 ;  see  also  civil  war, 
Georgia,  Macon. 

"  South  Atlantic  Quarterly," 
quoted  from,  173,  301,  331. 

"  Southern  Magazine,  The,"  118, 
280,  289,  292;  Lanier  contri. 
butes  to,  282. 

"  Southern  Review,  The,"  280. 

Spann,  Miss  Minnie,  reminis 
cences  of  Lanier,  334-335. 

Stebbins,  Miss  Emma,  friend  of 
Charlotte  Cushman,  183,  186, 
190, 194. 

Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  2, 
75 ;  describes  Lanier,  193 ;  let 
ter  to  Dr.  Gilman  about  La 
nier,  262. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  44,  73, 
277,  282. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  211, 
311. 

Stoddard,  Richard  Henry,  75, 
183. 

Sumner,  Charles,  46;  Lamar's 
speech  on,  180. 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  247,  248,  341, 
348,  359,  366. 

Sylvester,  J.  J.,  353;  Lanier's 
characterization  of,  236. 


Tabb,  John  B.,  letter  about  La 
nier's  life  in  prison,  59;  La. 
nier's  influence  on,  294;  his 
opinion  of  a  fragment  of  La 
nier's  poetry,  334;  his  appear 
ance  at  Johns  Hopkins  me 
morial  exercises,  338. 

Tannage,  Rev.  Samuel  K.,  27. 

"  Tannhauser,"  Lanier's  inter 
pretation  of,  116. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  159,  182,  192, 
199 ;  has  Lanier  appointed  to 
write  the  Centennial  Cantata, 
166 ;  introduces  him  to  men  of 
letters  at  Century  Club  and 
at  Goethe  celebration,  192 ; 
Lanier  writes  to,  65, 166,  167, 
176,  192,  205. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  33,  34,  186, 
188,  251,  312,  338,  347,  357,  366. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  53,  224,  299 ; 
Lanier's  opinion  of,  346. 

Thomas,  Edith,  poem  on  La 
nier,  338. 

Thomas,  Theodore,  115-117, 129, 
130,  134,  137,  144,  340;  offers 
Lanier  place  in  Orchestra, 
133;  Lanier's  description  of, 
as  conductor,  140 ;  his  opinion 
of  the  Centennial  poem,  166. 

Thompson,  Maurice,  44,  68,  96, 
285,  286,  299. 

Timrod,  Henry,  44,  45,  107,  283 ; 
Lanier's  opinion  of,  293. 

Turnbull,  Lawrence,  280,  281, 
336. 

Turnbull,  Mrs.  Lawrence,  poem 
on  Lanier,  304;  Mme.  Blanc's 
description  of  her  home,  304- 
307;  Lanier  buried  on  lot  in 
Greenmount  Cemetery,  336. 

Tweed.  Lanier's  opinion  of,  115. 

Uhland,56, 173. 

University  of  Virginia,  179,  273, 
281. 

Von  Biilow,  131, 173. 


386 


INDEX 


Wagner,  Richard  ;  Lanier's  ap 
preciation  of  his  music,  115, 
116,  140,  172. 

Ward,  William  Hayes,  author 
of  "  Lanier  Memorial,"  from 
which  quotations  are  made 
on  pages  1,  38-39, 124  126, 131- 
133 ;  relation  to  Lanier,  286. 

Washington,  George,  the  rela 
tion  of  the  Lanier  family  to, 
13  (note). 

Watt,  Mrs.  Jane  Lanier,  19,  73. 

Watts-Dunton,  Theodore,  357. 

Wehner,  Carl,  133. 


Whitman,  Walt,  2,  58,  160,  179, 
181,  309,  329,  347,  352,  358,  359, 
361,  362,  371. 

Willard,  Frances  E.,  account  of 
Lanier's  lectures,  329-330. 

Woodrow,  James,  126,  312;  in 
fluence  on  Lanier,  28-30;  re 
miniscences  of  Lanier,  30. 

Wordsworth,  William,  251,  298, 
311,  357,  363,  365,  371,  372. 

Wysham,  Henry,  his  friendship 
for  Lanier  in  Baltimore,  130 ; 
description  of  Lanier's  physi 
cal  appearance,  300. 


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